No kidding, goats develop accents, scientists say
There’s no kidding around about this — goats develop accents, a United Kingdom study suggests.
Scientists previously believed that the calls of goats, which have limited vocal abilities, were determined by genetics. Instead, this research found that kids — young goats — adapt their calls to their social group.
Elodie Briefer and Alan Mcelligott from the Queen Mary University of London recorded and analyzed the calls 23 young goats on a U. K. farm.
They found that kids that were full siblings had more similar calls at a young age, but as they got older, their calls became more like the calls of other goats in their social groups.
Most animal calls are genetically determined and are unaffected by the animal’s social environment. But previous research has found that some other animals with highly developed vocal abilities, such as whales, dolphins and bats, were able to alter their calls over time to adapt to individual and group identity.
Other animals with more flexible vocal cords, such as parrots, can adjust their sounds to the animals and people around them. However, Briefer points out that there is a difference between mimicking and developing an accent.
“Mimicking is producing entirely new sounds, like parrots, that have never been heard before,” she said Tuesday. Goats, on the other hand, adapt their calls to the sounds of their group mates’ calls, similar to what humans do.
“This is exactly what we have in humans when we develop accents, actually,” Briefer said. “If you’re speaking one language and you go to another country where they speak the same language, you still speak the same language but you change the way you pronounce things.”
The research, published in the scientific journal Animal Behaviour, suggests that scientists have previously underestimated the role of social environment in the development of animals’ communications.
Briefer says the ability to adjust a call based on the animal’s social environment probably also exists in other mammals, such as horses, cattle, dogs and cats.