Do cows have a language? Dutch scientist learning how they speak to one another

For ages, humans have believed that the ability to utilise language demonstrates our superiority. There is even an academic term for it: “logocentrism,” which means that individuals who employ words (from the Greek logos, meaning “word” or “reason”) are in a superior position. According to many linguists, language is what defines us as humans. Animals may grunt, bark, or chirp but lack language-like abilities.

Leonie Cornips, a sociolinguist at the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam, Netherlands, studies variations in syntax between different dialects in the Netherlands. But in addition to this, Cornips’ work has more recently taken what professionals in the field call “the animal turn”.

For years, Cornips has spent her summer vacations on a farm. She was impressed from the outset by the various personalities of each cow. She read an essay by a philosopher who wondered why linguists never studied animals. She was severely moved by it. Cornips believed that cows possessed the intellect and social behaviours to be useful research subjects for linguists. As a Dutch person, she was aware that they were cultural symbols in a country with a strong cheese tradition. So she focused her professional expertise on cows.

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Cornips’ colleagues were hesitant when she suggested using the language framework to study animals.

Cornips is utilising her experience with dairy cows to challenge this notion. It builds on a half-century of research that began with Jane Goodall’s work with chimps and Roger Payne’s recording of humpback whales in the 1960s to demonstrate that humans may not be as linguistically unique as previously thought.

Most study on cow language focusses on noises. A 2015 research in the Netherlands, for example, examined the pitch of cow noises to see if it associated with behaviour and found that this may be used to evaluate their welfare. A 2019 Australian study discovered that cows not only have different individual vocalisations, but also preserve these sounds throughout a range of circumstances.

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Patience is also important when cows interact with one another. When a mother calls her calf, it may take 60 seconds for the calf to react. The space between is filled with body motions. Austrian studies reveal that ear alignment and neck stretching are essential components of cow language. For a cow, it appears to be essential for communication. The first statement in a discussion with a cow will most likely contain ear movement and a gaze.

Cornips and the farmers she hires to help her record the frequency, length, and intensity of cow noises. She does, however, focus on other ways in which meaning is expressed among bovines. Her approaches are frequently ethnographic, which is a form of researching civilisations that heavily relies on the researcher’s observations. Cornips closely analyses cow activity and relationships, as well as sound, to discover how they communicate.

Humans and many other species differ in how they use the environment. Cornips discovered that cow communication relies more on its environment than ours. She witnessed one herd using their bodies to knock on an iron fence to communicate with the rest of the herd during feeding time, which she considers a form of language. She discovered that cows responded differently to her depending on whether she entered a barn with solid walls or open sides: because cows on various farms are surrounded by varied physical elements, this provides unique options for verbal expression.

Cows, she claims, acquire distinct languaging techniques resembling languages, with meaning determined by the geometry of their environment.

Cows, like other farmed animals, present an added hurdle in interspecies communication with humans. Dairy animals are continually moving between feeding, milking, and grazing areas. If a cow does not learn its daily pattern or is unproductive, it is slaughtered.

She is astounded by how often people assume cows are unintelligent.

Cows may have more intricate social lives than previously assumed. Her study suggests countless new possibilities of investigation. How much does language contribute to unique bovine groups and cultures? What kind of planning can cows undertake with one another? Can they utilise language to transmit knowledge between generations?

The answers to these questions may alter how we see the lives of many animals. Understanding what cattle, sheep, and chickens are communicating might lead to better interactions with them and better lifestyles for animals, given that people and domesticated livestock account for 96% of the weight of mammals on earth.

Cornips realises that things are unlikely to change quickly. However, she has recently found that the assumption that animals have language is becoming increasingly popular in academic journals.

She thinks that linguistics will be a tool for uncovering new perspectives. “My most important goal,” she says, “is to show others that you can look with different eyes at a domestic animal.”