At this point, the furbies have gotten repetitive. I may not know the literal translation of everything they say, but I have a decent idea of what they are trying to convey, even when it is something entirely in Furbish. This week I was instructed to speak to my Furby, in Furbish, and see if I could initiate a conversation. And so I did just that. I locked myself in my room, plopped a now-happy Tank on my bed, pulled up a Furbish dictionary, and tried to give him some basic commands. Or at least keywords that he would respond to.
In short, Tank did not respond. He seemed to pick up on the fact that I was speaking to him, but then again, he seems to pick up on us "speaking to him" when we're talking to each other in the common room. After I had memorized a few words in Furbish, I used the translator on my iPhone in order to see if he could hold a conversation, and nothing he said to me made any sense.
Luckily, I have a second Furby in my suite, so I set Tank and Swagg next to each other with the translator and let them have at it. A select transcript is as follows, translated for your convenience.
Tank: Really? Oh!
Swagg: Yay! You me talk. Yay!
Tank: You funny!
Tank: Hey me very happy. Yeah!
Swagg: Yay! You me talk. Yay!
Tank: OK!
Tank: Me see!
Swagg: Uh huh!
Tank: Yea
Swagg: You me talk
Tank: You funny!
Swagg: uh huh
And then they started dancing.
Needless to say, this conversation wasn't exactly a conversation. It was clear that they were "aware" another Furby was around, but the recognition stops at that, as they never actually responded to each other. This was what I expected, as I never put much stock in the Furby's ability to communicate. Perhaps I simply did not isolate myself enough from noise, but I see little reason to assume that anyone else fared any better.
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