Dr Dolittle and Polynesia

Do you have a pet? If you could talk to one animal or bird, which would it be, and what would you ask? Unit 2, 'Wit and Humour', opens with a story by Hugh Lofting about a doctor who learns to do exactly that!

Doctor Dolittle is in his kitchen with the Cat's-food-Man, who has a stomach-ache. "Why don't you stop being a people's doctor and be an animal doctor?" says the man. "You know far more about animals than the vets do!" He praises the Doctor's book about cats: "You might have been a cat yourself!" He can't read; his wife Theodosia, a scholar, read it to him.

The parrot Polynesia has been sitting in the window, watching the rain and singing a sailor song. When the man leaves, she flies to the table and agrees: be an animal doctor! Then she asks, "Did you know that animals can talk?"

"I knew parrots can talk," says the Doctor. "Oh, we parrots talk in two languages: people's language and bird language," she says proudly. "If I say Polly wants a cracker, you understand. But hear this: *Ka-ka oi-ee, fee-fee?*"

"Good gracious! What does that mean?" "It means *Is the porridge hot yet?* in bird language." (Porridge is a soft cooked cereal, a bit like our daliya.) Why hadn't she spoken it before? "What would have been the good? You wouldn't have understood me!"

The Doctor rushes for a book and pencil. "Don't go too fast; I'll write it down. Give me the Birds' A.B.C. first, slowly!" (Just as you first learnt ka, kha, ga or A, B, C!) All afternoon, while it rained, Polynesia gave him bird words.

At teatime the dog Jip comes in. "See, he's talking to you," says Polynesia. "Looks like he's scratching his ear," says the Doctor. "Animals don't always speak with their mouths," says the parrot. "They talk with their ears, their feet, their tails, with everything!" Jip twitching one side of his nose means "Can't you see it's stopped raining?" Dogs nearly always use their noses to ask questions.

Try it yourself: look at a cat, a dog or a bird. Ears flat, tail low, feathers puffed: what are they telling you? That's body language!