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There's no grammar, and thus no arbitrary construction of concepts beyond the fixed literal vocabulary. Without meaning in word order, there's no difference bet

There's no grammar, and thus no arbitrary construction of concepts beyond the fixed literal vocabulary. Without meaning in word order, there's no difference between "what the cat ate" and "what ate the cat". I wouldn't call it "language" for the same reason I wouldn't call HTML "programming". It does something adjacent, has some superficial similarities, but its limited in what it can ultimately be used for.

chimpanzee 3y ago
Some words, like “language”, are often used in the common sense rather than the technical sense. Sometimes for simplicity. Sometimes for humor. And sometimes it happens on Hacker News. But, if we’re being pedantic, I should mention that there are languages that do not require ordering for meaning but instead use declensions and conjugations (though ordering may still be used for further expressiveness). Though maybe you include this in your “fixed literal vocabulary”. Edit: A quick search suggest parrots can indeed use a basic grammar via sentence structuring. One of a few relevant search results: https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/polly-wants-a-conjunction-birds-learn-artificial-grammar/#:~:text=It%20turns%20out%20we're,on%20par%20with%20infant%20humans https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/polly-wants-a-con....
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