Lake District-based business Herdy, has launched the ‘baa-translator’ – an online sheep language tool that will, for the first time, allow humans to understand what its iconic Herdwick sheep are saying.

The Herdy character which now adorns a range of homewares, accessories and gifts was originally inspired by the smiling face of Herdwick sheep.

And with the help of its co-operative of local family-run upland fell farms, Herdy has finally worked it all tup.

Herdy buys wool from those farms at a fairly traded rate for all its HerdySleep mattresses.

But over the past 12 months those Herdy’s farmers have been extensively classifying each bleat a sheep makes and cataloguing how those sounds match their immediate actions.

And assisted by students at the Ewe-niversity of Cumber-lambed, it has developed a new large language model that will provide instant translations of the most common bleats into English.

New discoveries made by the farmers include:

- A direct correlation between the pitch of a bleat and the skipping height of each newborn lamb.

- A relationship between the length of the sound and the tastiness of moorland grass.

- Obvious short staccato bleats when a farmer is close by that indicate a strong bond and relation-sheep between animal and its wider human family.

Sheep-talk that’s emerged from the year-long study includes:

Yaaaah-Meeer-baa: I love ewe

Baaah-ba-maaah: Give me a break

Bahh-ee: Cheer Up

Errrrr-baaa ‘tat: You’ve forgotten your hat

Baa-sture ma baa-baaaaa: It’s pasture my bedtime

Eeeeeeer-woooool: Do you like my jumper?

Dri-baa aaa’t baa: Fancy a drink at the baa?

Herdy co-founder Diane Hannah was delighted to launch the translator ahead of the start of peak fell-walking season across the Lakes:  

“Baaah, eee, meh, dri-baheee-boo – or in other words, it’s baa-rilliant we can at last better understand the beautiful Herdwick sheep that make us all smile.”

The Baa-translator will be available for a trial period.