The camel, when it is a question of either working or leaving off work- so magnificently impartial is his stupidity- can protest in any voice from a wolf’s snarl to the wail of an uncomforted child.
-G.W. Steevens, With Kitchener to Khartoum, 1898
Yes it’s true, camels make unpleasant noises if and when they make noise at all, which is not often except when they tell a Khawaja he is doing something wrong, like placing the girth too forward on the belly or saddling too high on the hump. But KhairAllah was fluent in camel noises of the pleasanter sort, whenever he unloaded a baggager or couched his rider or bent its knee for hobbling. Voiced and unvoiced velar fricatives, alveolar sibilants, laryngeals and coronel consonants- KhairAllah spoke them all. Kh, Kh…Sh, Sh..Tuh, Tuh…[G]Ah, [G]Ah.