Information AboutAnimal Language |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ANIMAL LANGUAGE | |
| animal communication | |
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Animal language is the modeling of human language in animal systems. While the term is widely used, most researchers agree that they are not as complex or expressive as the human Language . They argue that there are significant differences separating human language from Animal communication even at its most complex, and that the underlying principles are not related. Other researchers argue that an evolutionary continuum exists between the communication methods these animals use and human language. There is a general consensus that human language is more complex than communication between animals. For more on communication among non-human animals, see The Animal Communication Project. These are the properties of human language that are argued to separate it from animal communication:
Research With Apes , such as the controversial research Francine Patterson has done with Koko , may suggest that apes are capable of using language that meets some of these requirements. Koko's achievements were with a human language that she was taught although she would occasionally create new words to describe articles for which she didn't know the correct term (for example, she calls brussell sprouts "little stink balls"). She also taught sign language to other gorillas, such as Michael, so her example shows that apes are capable of using and modifying "language", but not that they are capable of inventing one on their own. Arbitrariness has been noted in Meerkat calls; Bee Dance s show elements of spatial displacement; and cultural transmission has occurred with the offspring of many of the great apes who have been taught Sign Language s, the celebrated Bonobo s, Kanzi and Panbanisha , being examples. However, these single features alone do not qualify such instances of communication as being true language. However, Chimpanzee s have been seen "talking" to each other, when warning about approaching danger. For example, if one chimpanzee sees a snake, he makes a low, rumbling noise, signalling for all the other chimps to climb into nearby trees. Dr. Slobodchikoff studied prairie dog communication and made the following discoveries. His current findings are that prairie dogs have: a) different alarm calls for different species of predators; b) different escape behaviors for different species of predators; c) transmission of semantic information, in that playbacks of alarm calls in the absence of predators lead to escape behaviors that are appropriate to the kind of predator who elicited the alarm calls; d) alarm calls containing descriptive information about the general size, color, and speed of travel of the predator. STUDIED EXAMPLES The most studied examples of animal languages are:
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