Ontological polyglossia: the art of communicating in opacity*

What do communicating with a baby, with an animal, and with an ancestor have in common? In all three cases, people engage in opaque communication that is far from the standard psycholinguistic model of transparent interaction based on shared intentionality. Yet, these asymmetrical situations are usual for many human groups who live in hybrid communities, including pets, livestock, idols, spirits, and others. This article argues that the willingness to create nonverbal codes and make kin beyond linguistic humanity (with infants, animals, and deities) is a characteristic of the hybrid sociality of Homo adoptans . Our ontological polyglossia is not a deviance but a unique feature of human social skills. Based on ethnographic examples from different contexts, this article explores how people communicate and weave sociality at the border of humanity and beyond: with babies, with animals, and with the invisible.