This week, our featured word is ворона, or maybe it's собака, or maybe it's корова, or maybe it's all three. These are the Russian words for crow, dog, and cow, respectively.

They figure in a short Soviet claymation film, Пластилиновая ворона (Plasticine Crow), based on Aesop's fable about the fox and the crow. The narrator is uncertain about the details of the story so we are presented with multiple possiblities from the time of day, to the size of the cheese, to the identities of the main characters. Is it a crow or perhaps a dog or a cow? Is it a fox or is it instead a janitor/street-sweeper?

The video is available here on youtube and an English translation can be found here.

может быть ворона, а может быть собака, а может быть корова/ maybe a crow, or maybe a dog, or maybe a cow

For me as a language learner, the cartoon strikes a good balance between structure and whimsy. You often get similar concepts together: the cheese might have been 200 grams, 300 grams, or half a kilo and might have been denstined for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Presented together the relationships between these concepts are reinforced. On the other hand, the story sometimes takes you by surprise and introduces you to phrases you probably wouldn't encounter in other contexts: The fox might be an evil ostrich! And the moral of the story — not to horse around on construction sites — is an interesting alternative to the one presented in La Fontaine's version about the perils of being taken in by flattery. La Fontaine's version can be found translated into English here or set to music and performed live by Les Frères Jacques here. Though, apparently La Fontaine's moral was not always viewed as sufficiently moralizing by some who were scandalized that the fox was allowed to make off with his ill-gotten cheese.

a new possibility for your consideration: а может быть это кошка

Sneak Preview

The images in this post offer a taste of an upcoming blog post. They were made using a style transfer algorithm to render photographs in the style of one of the frames from the Plasticine Crow.