Good Moos For Accents
Language specialists have recently suggested that cows don’t just moo, they moo with the regional accent of where they are brought up.
Professor John Wells, at the University of London phonetics department, carried out the work and stated that it could be their peers that affect the local cows. "In small populations such as herds you would encounter identifiable dialectical variations which are most affected by the immediate peer group," he said.
Farmers in the West Country agree that their cows do sound different to others they have seen, some even claim that their herd has “a Somerset drawl”.
The phenomenon is well documented in birds, with several species having distinctly different chirps and songs depending on where you are in the country.
So if you’re out and about in the countryside, listen out for different regional moos – if you record them we’ll put them on the website and create a regional audio gallery of the UK’s cows.
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