An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Azeb Amha (University of Leiden):
Farming and human-to-domesticated animal communication in Zargula
Abstract:
Growing research outputs have appeared on human-to-domesticated-animal communication systems. In most studies, the focus is on communication directed to pet animals such as dogs and cats (Kaminski et.al (2012), Galvan and Vonk (2016)). There are also experimental studies on communication patterns involving horses, piglets and reindeer (e.g. Schrimpf 2020). These studies, have shown the importance of gesture, eye-gaze as well as various vocalizations for the required communication effect. Concerning African languages, limited information on interjectional expressions and verbal commands on summonses and dispersals are presented (e.g. Bynon 1976). In this work in progress presentation, I discuss communication means used by the Zargula, mixed cultivator people in Southwest Ethiopia, in addressing domesticated animals. The utterances directed to house-hold animals are largely arbitrary sound-meaning combinations (not all are auditory mimicry of calls of the animals in question) and are thus part of the unique linguistic repertoire of Zargula that are central in everyday interaction (Azeb Amha 2013). I focus on utterances directed at plough-oxen that are said to 'react/respond' not only to directives (commands) but also to calls of their names and other forms of speech such as intimidation/threat, scolding as well as praise. Using work-songs (chants), praise on the character and perseverance of individual heads of animals, descent-line and connections of the animals to the farmer are expressed, addressing the oxen directly in the 2nd person form. The speakers' intention in such communication act seems not only to influence behaviour but also to indicate emotional and social interdependence between humans and house-hold animals. As Nikolsky (2020) has shown in relation to the history of European farming, such communication practices can have far-reaching consequences in human culture and cognition.
Please contact iash@ed.ac.uk for a link to join the seminar.
References
Amha, Azeb. 2013. Directives to humans and to domestic animals – the imperative and some interjections in Zargulla. In: Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle and Martine Vanhove (eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Cushitic and Omotic Languages, Paris, 16-18 April 2008. Cologne: Köppe.
Bynon, James. 1976. Domestic Animal Calling in a Berber Tribe. In: McCormack, W.C. and S.A. Wurm (eds), Language and Man: Anthropological Issues, pp. 39-66. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.
Galvan, Moriah and Jennifer Vonk. 2016. Man’s other best friend: domestic cats (F. silvestris catus) and their discrimination of human emotion cues. Animal Cognition (19): 193-205
Kaminski, Juliane, Linda Schulz and Michael Tomasello. 2012. How dogs know when communication is intended for them. Developmental Science 15(2): 222–232
Aleksey Nikolsky. 2020. The Pastoral origin of Semiotically Functional Tonal Organization of Music. Frontiers in Psychology. 11:1358
Schrimpf, Anne, Marie-Sophie Single and Christian Nawroth. 2020. Social Referencing in the Domestic Horse, Animals 10, 164; doi:10.3390/ani10010164