Hold The Front Page!
I've just seen on the BBC (so it must be true) that John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London, has backed up claims by dairy farmers that cows "moo with regional accents"! This was noticed by members of the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group, who put it down to the close bond between farmer and cow. Their claim that the cows mooed with a Somerset 'twang' has been verified. Prof. Wells said "This phenomena is well attested in birds. You find distinct chirping accents in the same species around the country. This could also be true of cows. In small populations such as herds you would encounter identifiable dialectical variations which are most affected by the immediate peer group."
posted by Bazza at 1:45 am
6 Comments:
Well, BBC me! I believe it! By the way, Bazza, that looks just like my cow, lol.
I did a post, up for a minute then took it down, I went to an extreme with it I felt. It was on birds and their language, like can Blue Jays communicate with Robins? I bet no. And they do talk a lot, probably with no ability to cross communicate, they hear only their own kind of bird.
My post was about bird egos, derived from their language differences, like one breed will fight with another type, but they don't fight within the tribe, except with the mating thing, I am talking about fights over food.
Now I am wondering about cows! Have they 'egos'? Dialects, that is so funny but I bet true.
Unless it's a mighty big hoax Jim, it's quite true. I think if you re-posted that stuff it would be a very interesting starting point for a discussion. When I said in a previous comment on your blog that animals don't have 'self-awareness' I meant that they don't even conceive of themselves as entities. As for birds not fighting within their tribes; you should see the robin in my back garden. It is fiercely territorial because any another robin would be after the same food source but it ignores the finches, magpies and starlings.
Super cool info...accents for cows...bazza I have struggled a bit with varied british accents...vast difference between essex, london and manchester accents. not to mention accents of my scottish and irish friends....
loved this news about the cows
And, Dunmbdodi, in England it's not only the accents that change from region to region, it's also the actual words that change. Even if someone whose first language was English from, say, the USA came to Manchester, they would have a problem.
To 'bum a fag' from someone has a very different meaning in the US, as does to 'keep your pecker up'!
I remember from my days in Europe, the English saying, 'I'm going to knock her up!', us americans always took that the wrong way, many such things. I remember them calling girls/women 'birds'. Wonder why the Beatles never put this stuff in their songs, mostly american slang and slurs wasn't it?
You mean the Robin is fighting other Robins for territory, oh, but that is part of the mating think, the 'house' thing for the family, don't want the mate to get jealous, having another like-species around, no problem the different birds, no suspicions possible there, lol, I just made this up. This bird thing is getting to me, Bazza.
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