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> animal languages When I took a Linguistics course at university, both the professor and text book were very emphatic that animals do not have (read: have nev

> animal languages When I took a Linguistics course at university, both the professor and text book were very emphatic that animals do not have (read: have never been observed using) language, they have communication. They went as far as to say that language was the defining characteristic of humans.

starbeast 8y ago
What is their definition of language? Comprehension of sentences by bottlenosed dolphins - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027784900039 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027784... First evidence that birds tweet using grammar - https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-that-birds-tweet-using-grammar/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-...
- maoeurk 8y ago
  Hmm, that's a very good question. I'm not exactly sure, I don't have access to either right now, so I'll have to guess. I think it's probably in how sophisticated it is. The bird example seems analogous to something like a handshake. A handshake has a sort of grammar to it, has to learned by observation/instruction, and if you scrambled it, people would be confused. However, I don't think the ceremony of handshaking qualifies as a language. The dolphin example as well, while more sophisticated, isn't very when compared to what humans nearly universally do without effort. Though that could be a limitation of the study. Given enough time we may discover a dolphin language or teach them one comparable to what we can do. Take what I said with a grain of salt though, I don't really know what I'm talking about here.
  - starbeast 8y ago
    >Take what I said with a grain of salt though, I don't really know what I'm talking about here. I take it all with a lot of salt until we have a wide range of animal languages down. One thing I found interesting is the recent work on dolphins has found entire images of things they have echolocated embedded in their clicks, suggesting a possible pictorial language. Here's an excerpt from the summary - >"We discovered transient wave patterns in the water cell that were strikingly similar in shape to the objects being echolocated. To further investigate the shapes in these Cyma Glyphs we converted the images to 3-D models. As far as we know, this the first time such a method has been implemented. >Transient wave images were found for the cube, cross, flowerpot and a human by examining single still frames, or single frames acquired in bursts, usually where there was high power and dense click trains in the recording. The parameters involved in capturing echolocation images with the CymaScope include careful control of the acoustic energy entering the visualizing cell. Water requires a narrow acceptable “power window” of acoustic energy; too little energy results in no image formation and too much energy results in water being launched from the cell. As a result, many hours of work were involved in capturing the still images of the echolocated objects. The imagery for the human subject was captured in video mode and has been approximately located in time code. The image formed between 19.6 to 20 seconds into the recording and may derive from a set of dense clicks at approximately 20 seconds. The video was shot at 24 frames/second with a possible audio synchronization error of plus or minus 3 frames." https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-phenomenon-discovered-while-imaging-dolphin-echolocation-sounds-2155-9910-1000202.php?aid=76570&view=mobile https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-phenomenon-discove...

starbeast 8y ago

What is their definition of language? Comprehension of sentences by bottlenosed dolphins - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027784900039 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027784... First evidence that birds tweet using grammar - https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-that-birds-tweet-using-grammar/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-...

maoeurk 8y ago
Hmm, that's a very good question. I'm not exactly sure, I don't have access to either right now, so I'll have to guess. I think it's probably in how sophisticated it is. The bird example seems analogous to something like a handshake. A handshake has a sort of grammar to it, has to learned by observation/instruction, and if you scrambled it, people would be confused. However, I don't think the ceremony of handshaking qualifies as a language. The dolphin example as well, while more sophisticated, isn't very when compared to what humans nearly universally do without effort. Though that could be a limitation of the study. Given enough time we may discover a dolphin language or teach them one comparable to what we can do. Take what I said with a grain of salt though, I don't really know what I'm talking about here.
- starbeast 8y ago
  >Take what I said with a grain of salt though, I don't really know what I'm talking about here. I take it all with a lot of salt until we have a wide range of animal languages down. One thing I found interesting is the recent work on dolphins has found entire images of things they have echolocated embedded in their clicks, suggesting a possible pictorial language. Here's an excerpt from the summary - >"We discovered transient wave patterns in the water cell that were strikingly similar in shape to the objects being echolocated. To further investigate the shapes in these Cyma Glyphs we converted the images to 3-D models. As far as we know, this the first time such a method has been implemented. >Transient wave images were found for the cube, cross, flowerpot and a human by examining single still frames, or single frames acquired in bursts, usually where there was high power and dense click trains in the recording. The parameters involved in capturing echolocation images with the CymaScope include careful control of the acoustic energy entering the visualizing cell. Water requires a narrow acceptable “power window” of acoustic energy; too little energy results in no image formation and too much energy results in water being launched from the cell. As a result, many hours of work were involved in capturing the still images of the echolocated objects. The imagery for the human subject was captured in video mode and has been approximately located in time code. The image formed between 19.6 to 20 seconds into the recording and may derive from a set of dense clicks at approximately 20 seconds. The video was shot at 24 frames/second with a possible audio synchronization error of plus or minus 3 frames." https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-phenomenon-discovered-while-imaging-dolphin-echolocation-sounds-2155-9910-1000202.php?aid=76570&view=mobile https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-phenomenon-discove...