ABSTRACT
In his well-documented survey of the anthropology of humour, Apte reminds us that anthropologists have traditionally distinguished Homo Sapiens from other animals by the possession of language and the ability to laugh: “It is inconceivable that the human race could exist without either language or humour” (1985: 177) * . Language and humour, he notes, share many common features: each has universal (formal) as well as culture-specific (substantive) aspects: “all languages, for example, use vocalic and consonantal sounds that have phonemic status,” even though these sounds and their status may be realized in different ways depending on the language. Some techniques used in humour are also universal, such as mimicry, exaggeration, reversal, mockery, punning and nicknaming (ibid: 178).
