We’ve learned that cats have a range of expressions that they use to communicate with each other and with us. Cows have long been considered highly intelligent creatures, even though they have never quite learned to stay away from us before we turn them into burgers. So, it makes sense that they too would have a complex language made up of expressive movements.
A sociolinguist from the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam by the name of Leonie Cornips used to study human language but now is dedicating her time to figuring out how cows communicate. She contends that communication is not solely the domain of the human race and that cows also possess complex social behaviors and express themselves through a series of vocalizations, movements of the body, and environmental interactions.
Cows Talk Too, and This Linguist Is Dedicating Her Life to Understanding Them
For instance, cows often use ear movements to communicate with each other and with us, even if we’ve been blissfully unaware of it for centuries. Cornets says that cows have developed “language practices” that are heavily influenced by their environments.
Most research on the language of cows focused on the sounds that they make rather than their self-expression through physicality. A study from 2015 out of the Netherlands found that the pitch of a cow’s moos could be used to monitor its well-being.
So that she can slip into a herd of cows and be seen as one of their own, Cornips found that cows have an elaborate greeting ritual that she emulates to make cows feel comfortable around her, otherwise the cows would be skittish and untrusting if she or another researcher attempted to touch them.
The aforementioned ear twitching plays an integral role in the communication between a cow and its calf. The cow will moo to get its calf’s attention. They could take the Up to 60 seconds to respond. The intervening time is filled with ear twitches and neck stretches that communicate…something to the calf.
What that something is isn’t completely understood, but she’s not going to stop trying to figure it out.
The post This Linguist Is Dedicating Her Life to Learning to Speak Cow appeared first on VICE.
