(everything about laughter to go here)

According to Elizabeth Giddens, “Mahadev L. Apte has compiled an anthropology of laughter, according to him: The Dobuans of New Guinea revile laughter and have made a virtue of dourness. Pygmies are very quick to roll on the ground, slap their sides, and snap their fingers in uproarious laughter. The Greenland Inuit resolve disputes with public-humiliation contests, and the winner is chosen by how much laughter he summons to his cause. Lower-caste Tamil men giggle when addressing someone from the upper caste in order to express humility. The 40 million speakers of Marathi, in Western India, have a robust lexicon for laughter, including:

Khudukhudu: soft pleasant laughter of infant

Khadakhada: loud laughter of an infant

Phidiphid: vulgar and obscene laughter.

Khaskhas: mild appreciative laughter

Khokho: loud uproarious laughter

Khikhi: horselike laughter

Phisphis: derogatory laughter

Hyahya: superficial polite laughter

English too has its fair share with: giggle, chortle, chuckle, cackle, guffaw, snigger, snicker, snort, titter, crow, yuck, and the now obsolete cachinnate.

Apte also notes the collective universals:

“…humor in traditional societies grossly appears similar
to our own. Examples involved such varied situations as laughter at the
antics of children, lewd comments, sexual jokes, teasing, mocking
others who were too serious or in positions of authority, spousal
jibes, slapstick maneuvers, uncomfortable laughter to save face, and
humor to quell conflicts within a tribe.”

source:
* Elizabeth Giddens ‘radiolab’. Download this mp3 and know everything you want to know about laughter, or better visit radiolab
Related article:
* ‘From Peek-a-boo to Sarcasm: Women’s Humor as a Means of Both Connection and Resistance’ where Linda Naranjo-Huebl notes “Mahadev Apte points out that as women age, the restrictions on their humor are eased. Regenia Gagnier summarizes Apte’s findings: “Men fear women’s humor for much the same reason that they fear women’s sexual freedom — because they encourage women’s aggression and promiscuity and thus disrupt the social order; that therefore men desire to control women’s humor just as they desire to control women’s sexuality — to wit, in the public domain.” Thus, men’s use of sexual humor serves a social-sexual role of oppression. (Regenia Gagnier, “Between Women: A Cross-class Analysis of Status and Anarchic Humor,” Women’s Studies 15: 137 (1988).

for the latest addition visit: An anthropology of laughter