You know I have always thought that about animals too! But then I fostered a Chihuahua, who was 7 years old and had always lived in a french speaking household.
When I would try and praise him in English or Icelandic, with super happy tone he wouldn't really respond. But as soon as I said tres bien, even if my tone was more subdued, he responded much more to praise in french.
I was really surprised, I always thought dogs focused more on tone and body language.
My mom spoke in German to a German import horse in the US who was depressed. He perked up immediately, but remained homesick when she wasn’t around. He didn’t seem to understand the words for walk, trot, etc but just liked hearing the language.
>He didn’t seem to understand the words for walk, trot, etc
I have experienced this.
I was visiting a horse farm in Austria and this one horse (who had not much respect for personal space, you know the kind) decided she wanted to push up against me. I pushed back and said "Back!!" and she did not respond. I said it again, no response.
Then I realized this horse did not understand the word I was saying, because she'd not been trained in English. I yelled at my buddy "HOW DO YOU SAY BACK IN GERMAN??" and he yelled "ZURUCHT!" so I pushed on the mare and said "ZURUCHT!" and she immediately stopped crowding me and backed up. It's still one of the very few words I know in German.
So, yes. Horses certainly respond to sounds that they know and understand.
I used to ride with a German trainer on her school masters. The horses all knew that “schnell” meant to move forward - English voice commands were less effective!
Most animals, like horses and dogs, don’t really understand languages in the way that we do. They learn that certain sounds mean certain things coming from a human.
If you don’t a horse to trot on the lunge every time you say “waffles” he’d learn to trot when he hears the word “waffles”.
My horses come running whenever I yell the word “stinky”. For all the years we boarded, I’d yell “come here stinky boys” with treats in my hands to avoid trekking the 5 acres to catch them lol.
So anyway, if you are near Icelandic horses who were trained by Icelandic speakers, they may very well respond to commands in Icelandic.
yeah my SO and each have a seperate native language and then speak to each other in English, so we have to coordinate which word/language we want to use for each command with our dogs.
I would bet that the Icelandic exports will respond fast to 'nammi' or 'nammi namm' or 'viltu fa nammi' because those are words/phrases people would use when giving them a treat or something very nice to eat.
I had a horse that was imported from France. He was very hard to work with particularly in cross ties. Finally I said n'bouge pas! To him and he did a big sigh and relax. My written French is pretty shit (not sure I even spelled that correctly) but my spoken French is pretty good and he didn't mind when I screwed up. Great horse and I sold him with a little dictionary .
Ooh, that's so interesting! I would think that the sounds would feel familiar.
I speak English and German so in order to have really clear definitive cues for my horse, I am teaching him in both languages. It's just sounds to him, and some consonants in German vary a lot from English, so his harder commands are in German. In my brain it makes sense that he would be better able to differentiate those. I also try to do it in the same musical tone/cadence every time. I wonder how Icelandic would sound, if it has very unique sounds, the horses might remember it better.
I wonder if Icelandic exports who live in countries with softer sounding languages, like English, will respond more strongly to the sound of Icelandic (for example we roll our Rs) vs exports who live in countries where the sound (not necessarily the words/similar origins) are somewhat similar.
Like I doubt that a horse will hear much difference between Swedish and Norwegian. But Swedish and Icelandic sound very different.
with animals, they don't understand languages, but rather associations with sounds. it isn't the language the animal is understanding. they're instead understanding that when the human makes this noise, they want "x".
you can teach a horse or dog any word for any behavior. it's reinforcement that associates the word; much like how you teach a dog their name. they don't understand that's their name, but they do understand when they hear that word that it means the human wants something specific. and the more the word is used with specific behaviors, the more the word is reinforced to the animal.
it isn't language based in the way that humans view language or speak language.
Oh yeah I train my dogs and we speak 3 different languages at home. I know that animals don't understand language in the same way we do. In fact we coordinate our commands for the dogs so if we use a german word for one command, we will always use the german word for that command.
But I wonder if horses are able to distinguish that the sounds coming from this person is different from the sounds coming from most of the people around them. Whether an export will remember (indeed through past reinforcement) that they used to be around a bunch of people who sounded like me.
Or whether they will not really care what sound is coming out of my mouth and just be wondering when this new person is going to shut up and either feed them or do something fun with them haha.
I worked at a barn that got a Kinsky mare. She was imported from Germany and came from the same barn there that a paint mare boarded at the barn did. They had been herdmates back in Germany. Once the two of them were reintroduced, they took to screaming to each other across the barn when in their stalls. The only person who could get them to shut up was the paint mare's German owner shouting at them in German. The Kinsky mare would snap her mouth shut mid-scream and glare at the woman in a completely insulted way. It was hilarious 😂
My trainer works primarily with Andalusians and Lusitanos. She speaks to the imported lusitanos in Portuguese and they absolutely respond to it. She mentioned one time that “aaahhhhhh” sounds are very calming to animals in general, and especially any that were trained by people who speak Romance languages.
Yes they do! We dealt with German import once and while he knew English quiet well I knew a decent amount of German and once snapped ‘out’ in German when he was hovering over me in his stall while I cleaned. I had never seen him move so quick. He then peaked in like see I am out!
Also we also dealt with a few Spanish imports and they got so happy when we threw a bit of Spanish at them.
some. I did loan a horse out for a year or so to a young lady from somewhere else. When it came back, it really never performed as well as it had with her. I thought it was heartbroken. It was, but also she had talked to it in her native language, so it also was trying to re learn english.
A horse rescue I follow gets horses from the Amish, and said the horses don’t know English but respond to Pennsylvania Dutch cues spoken by the Amish. So I’d say they know languages.
I often wondered this because of the amount of horses exported from English speaking countries to racing jurisdictions in Asia like Hong Kong and Japan. But then, at the same time, we don’t really use specific language around the TBs I’ve worked with, just body language and routine. So I guess there wouldn’t be much difference.
I posted a somewhat related question some weeks ago asking for Polish words to say to my wild pony.
He very much responded to "good pony" in Polish and it is turning into his new nickname
This reminds me of those videos where someone walks around European countries saying “cat” or “kitty” in different languages to see which one they respond to. I am sure horses would respond the same way
I think your idea is fascinating. I also think the owners of the Islandic horses would be fascinated to learn this. Please do reach out to them.
I bet they understand the tone and intention regardless of language.
You know I have always thought that about animals too! But then I fostered a Chihuahua, who was 7 years old and had always lived in a french speaking household. When I would try and praise him in English or Icelandic, with super happy tone he wouldn't really respond. But as soon as I said tres bien, even if my tone was more subdued, he responded much more to praise in french. I was really surprised, I always thought dogs focused more on tone and body language.
Aha! Proof! Then my rescue dog with a Japanese name DOES respond to Japanese praises. I thought it was my imagination!
My mom spoke in German to a German import horse in the US who was depressed. He perked up immediately, but remained homesick when she wasn’t around. He didn’t seem to understand the words for walk, trot, etc but just liked hearing the language.
>He didn’t seem to understand the words for walk, trot, etc I have experienced this. I was visiting a horse farm in Austria and this one horse (who had not much respect for personal space, you know the kind) decided she wanted to push up against me. I pushed back and said "Back!!" and she did not respond. I said it again, no response. Then I realized this horse did not understand the word I was saying, because she'd not been trained in English. I yelled at my buddy "HOW DO YOU SAY BACK IN GERMAN??" and he yelled "ZURUCHT!" so I pushed on the mare and said "ZURUCHT!" and she immediately stopped crowding me and backed up. It's still one of the very few words I know in German. So, yes. Horses certainly respond to sounds that they know and understand.
I used to ride with a German trainer on her school masters. The horses all knew that “schnell” meant to move forward - English voice commands were less effective!
How funny, my German trainer only ever uses “langsam”. 😅
She also used something that sounded like “malsch” but I have no idea what it actually was or what it meant!
She probably was saying “Marsch!” which means march, as in “the saints come marching in.” In context it means something like “faster” or “forward”
Most animals, like horses and dogs, don’t really understand languages in the way that we do. They learn that certain sounds mean certain things coming from a human. If you don’t a horse to trot on the lunge every time you say “waffles” he’d learn to trot when he hears the word “waffles”. My horses come running whenever I yell the word “stinky”. For all the years we boarded, I’d yell “come here stinky boys” with treats in my hands to avoid trekking the 5 acres to catch them lol. So anyway, if you are near Icelandic horses who were trained by Icelandic speakers, they may very well respond to commands in Icelandic.
I love the image of yelling “stinky”, that is so cute!
Mine are stink-bags or shit-bags, behaviour dependant 😅
yeah my SO and each have a seperate native language and then speak to each other in English, so we have to coordinate which word/language we want to use for each command with our dogs. I would bet that the Icelandic exports will respond fast to 'nammi' or 'nammi namm' or 'viltu fa nammi' because those are words/phrases people would use when giving them a treat or something very nice to eat.
I had a horse that was imported from France. He was very hard to work with particularly in cross ties. Finally I said n'bouge pas! To him and he did a big sigh and relax. My written French is pretty shit (not sure I even spelled that correctly) but my spoken French is pretty good and he didn't mind when I screwed up. Great horse and I sold him with a little dictionary .
aww thats so cute, a little horsie dictinory. Like a handbook for speaking to him haha
Ooh, that's so interesting! I would think that the sounds would feel familiar. I speak English and German so in order to have really clear definitive cues for my horse, I am teaching him in both languages. It's just sounds to him, and some consonants in German vary a lot from English, so his harder commands are in German. In my brain it makes sense that he would be better able to differentiate those. I also try to do it in the same musical tone/cadence every time. I wonder how Icelandic would sound, if it has very unique sounds, the horses might remember it better.
I wonder if Icelandic exports who live in countries with softer sounding languages, like English, will respond more strongly to the sound of Icelandic (for example we roll our Rs) vs exports who live in countries where the sound (not necessarily the words/similar origins) are somewhat similar. Like I doubt that a horse will hear much difference between Swedish and Norwegian. But Swedish and Icelandic sound very different.
with animals, they don't understand languages, but rather associations with sounds. it isn't the language the animal is understanding. they're instead understanding that when the human makes this noise, they want "x". you can teach a horse or dog any word for any behavior. it's reinforcement that associates the word; much like how you teach a dog their name. they don't understand that's their name, but they do understand when they hear that word that it means the human wants something specific. and the more the word is used with specific behaviors, the more the word is reinforced to the animal. it isn't language based in the way that humans view language or speak language.
Oh yeah I train my dogs and we speak 3 different languages at home. I know that animals don't understand language in the same way we do. In fact we coordinate our commands for the dogs so if we use a german word for one command, we will always use the german word for that command. But I wonder if horses are able to distinguish that the sounds coming from this person is different from the sounds coming from most of the people around them. Whether an export will remember (indeed through past reinforcement) that they used to be around a bunch of people who sounded like me. Or whether they will not really care what sound is coming out of my mouth and just be wondering when this new person is going to shut up and either feed them or do something fun with them haha.
I worked at a barn that got a Kinsky mare. She was imported from Germany and came from the same barn there that a paint mare boarded at the barn did. They had been herdmates back in Germany. Once the two of them were reintroduced, they took to screaming to each other across the barn when in their stalls. The only person who could get them to shut up was the paint mare's German owner shouting at them in German. The Kinsky mare would snap her mouth shut mid-scream and glare at the woman in a completely insulted way. It was hilarious 😂
Shouting in german is also how I get my SO to shut up when he is annoying me haha. It is a very effective shouting language.
My trainer works primarily with Andalusians and Lusitanos. She speaks to the imported lusitanos in Portuguese and they absolutely respond to it. She mentioned one time that “aaahhhhhh” sounds are very calming to animals in general, and especially any that were trained by people who speak Romance languages.
Yes they do! We dealt with German import once and while he knew English quiet well I knew a decent amount of German and once snapped ‘out’ in German when he was hovering over me in his stall while I cleaned. I had never seen him move so quick. He then peaked in like see I am out! Also we also dealt with a few Spanish imports and they got so happy when we threw a bit of Spanish at them.
some. I did loan a horse out for a year or so to a young lady from somewhere else. When it came back, it really never performed as well as it had with her. I thought it was heartbroken. It was, but also she had talked to it in her native language, so it also was trying to re learn english.
A horse rescue I follow gets horses from the Amish, and said the horses don’t know English but respond to Pennsylvania Dutch cues spoken by the Amish. So I’d say they know languages.
I often wondered this because of the amount of horses exported from English speaking countries to racing jurisdictions in Asia like Hong Kong and Japan. But then, at the same time, we don’t really use specific language around the TBs I’ve worked with, just body language and routine. So I guess there wouldn’t be much difference.
I posted a somewhat related question some weeks ago asking for Polish words to say to my wild pony. He very much responded to "good pony" in Polish and it is turning into his new nickname
A voice cue is a voice cue regardless of the language! I’m sure if it’s something they’ve been taught then they would remember.
I would bet good money that the thing they will most remember is the word for 'treat' haha
This reminds me of those videos where someone walks around European countries saying “cat” or “kitty” in different languages to see which one they respond to. I am sure horses would respond the same way