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Chimps strike stones against trees as communication, study suggests
- hbarka 1y agoKnock knock
- dylan604 1y agoto get to the other side?
- Caelus9 1y agoI’ve always felt that every animal probably has its own kind of language. We humans just can’t always hear it or make sense of it. I remember reading about a study on dolphin sounds that actually won an award. The patterns in how they communicate were surprisingly complex. These kinds of studies don’t just help us understand animals better. They can also inspire new ideas in other parts of life. Pretty cool stuff.
- suddenlybananas 1y agoWhile pretty much every animal communicates, that's radically different from human language.
- prox 1y agoAnimal communities are surprisingly complex. And while they don’t deal in abstractions much like we do, their ability to make things known is impressive,
- perfmode 1y ago> And while they don’t deal in abstractions much like we do I do believe that such a statement won't stand the test of time.
- nkrisc 1y agoLanguage is communication, but not all communication is language.
- growlNark 1y agoI'm fine with calling it language. We have other ways of feeling special.
- nkrisc 1y agoOk, then we need a new word to differentiate between human language and other animal language, because they are still quite different.
- growlNark 1y agoI think you distinguished them admirably. It tends to be pretty obvious from context which meaning is intended. Hell, we use "design language" even if it's clearly not language; i see little reason why this should be different. And of course the rest of the non-verbal chomsky hierarchy has little relation to how most folks use the word (hell, I bet most coders can't even tell you what a regular language is despite using regular expressions). But, particularly when it comes to stuff like bird song, it shows a lot of features of syntax. I just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater arguing over what to call it.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- guerrilla 1y agoUntil recently we didn't even think women and Africans were that intelligent. Never undestimate people's ability to underestimate others.
- chimpotent 1y ago[flagged]
- Bas123 1y agoMy cat and his archenemy have a way to communicate indirectly through the birds shared between the houses. If the birds starts to chirp loudly, my cat becomes alert, not looking at the birds, but at the place his fellow cat might come from.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- reify 1y ago[flagged]
- dedicate 1y agoWe're so focused on verbal language, but this shows communication is so much more diverse. Maybe we've been missing a whole lot by just listening for 'words.'
- seethishat 1y agoInteresting. People claim that 'Bigfoot' hits trees with rocks too. So maybe Bigfoot is just a North American ape of some kind... if it really exists.
- joshuaheard 1y ago"Tree-knocking" by Sasquatch has been witnessed. I immediately thought of this when I read the article. Although, Sasquatch has been thought to use branches, not stones, to strike the trees.
- CommenterPerson 1y agoSometimes I strike my head against the wall to communicate distress.
- kragen 1y agoHumans have also used drums, often wooden slit gongs, for long-distance communication, relaying the message every few kilometers. Although talking drums are no longer a leading communications technology (telephone lines, radio, and fiber optics carry farther and have higher bandwidth) they are still in traditional and ritual use, much like handwriting, candles, IRC servers, and <table> layout. The West African versions of this form of communication are the best known, but it has been used in many parts of the world. Transposed into the world of radio, this approach is known as "ultrawideband" or "time domain radio". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_drum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_drum https://time.com/archive/6771186/science-drum-telegraphy/ https://time.com/archive/6771186/science-drum-telegraphy/ 01942: "Any pulp writer worth his salt knows that when his locale is darkest Africa he can’t use too many drums. In a good standard plot, talking drums warn fierce natives of the unsuspecting white man’s approach while the reader shudders. Last week in Natural History Dr. Albert Irwin Good, who understands Bulu and related African dialects, published the first popular article on the linguistics of drums, the complicated telegraphy whereby African drummers talk across the jungle." https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00437956.1945.11659257 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00437956.1945.11... 01945: Drum-signaling in a West African Tribe, by George Herzog. "The use of musical instruments for purposes of signaling is very widespread, and definite systems of communication are or were based on it in native Africa, Middle and South America, and the Pacific. The African systems are the most elaborate and often serve for free conversation; their existence is well known to the anthropologist and the traveler, hut they have been little investigated from the linguistic point of view, and still less in their social setting." https://pen.org/drums-that-talk/ https://pen.org/drums-that-talk/ (Gleick?) "For a long time Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa had no idea. In fact they had no idea that the drums conveyed information at all. In their own cultures, in special cases a drum could be an instrument of signaling, along with the bugle and the bell, used to transmit a small set of messages: attack; retreat; come to church. But they could not conceive of talking drums. (...) That result was a technology much sought in Europe: long-distance communication faster than any traveler on foot or horseback. Through the still night air over a river, the thump of the drum could carry six or seven miles. Relayed from village to village, messages could rumble a hundred miles or more in a matter of an hour." https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/50p1b7/til_that_talking_drums_were_used_in_africa_for/ https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/50p1b7/til_t... "I spent a good chunk of my childhood in Nigeria and as a result of learning to play the drums I happened to pick up the talking drums as well and even though my spoken Yoruba is absolutely horrendous now (I can still understand), I can still speak Yoruba with the talking drums." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT3tIJzAkcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT3tIJzAkcc a short message with a transcription
- KingLancelot 1y ago[dead]
- _elephant 1y agoWhat if language didn’t begin with words but with resonance? Watching chimpanzees throw stones into trees feels less like a primitive gesture and more like a signal—a pulse across time. Not just a message to others nearby, but a mark etched into the sensory fabric of the forest. Maybe what we call “language” is just the tip of a deeper communicative iceberg. Beneath it lie rhythm, vibration, and shared attention. And that’s not exclusive to humans. Instead of asking whether chimp signals “count” as language, maybe we should ask why our definition of language is still so narrow.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y agoBjork said this decades ago. I am positive that there's an early-90's Sugarcubes song with the lyrics "bangs a tree with a rock."
- rickydroll 1y ago“We’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent lifeforms everywhere… and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys!” https://planetclaire.tv/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/rocks.mp3 https://planetclaire.tv/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/rocks.mp3
- bilsbie 1y agoA bit of a personal Mandela effect for me is animals being way smarter in the past five years. I distinctly remember reading an an animal above newspaper column 30 years ago where the author considered the person absurd for suggesting her dog gets mad and she leaves and pees on the furniture out of spite. Nowadays we have dogs talking using buttons and expressing all kind of complex emotions.
- hackernewshomos 1y ago[flagged]
- knowitnone 1y agoWe pay people to study this? Two videos, the first shows the chimp dropping a rock and hitting the tree with feet. Second video shows chimp throwing a rock against a tree and screaming hysterically. Based on this, they claim it is communications? Sure, if doing anything is communication but that thud on the tree certainly isn't heard very far away. Their screeches were much louder and travel further. This is not science, this is a joke!
- jurgenaut23 1y agoEvery time I read a study that reports animals being smarter than we thought, I cannot help but think that this is obvious. We humans are animals, nothing less, nothing more. We are animals with big brains, sure, but nothing of importance sets us apart from other animals. To me, this whole idea of “human exceptionalism” has simply no plausibility, both from a biological and a philosophical standpoint.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y agoI wonder why this belief that humans were somehow uniquely sentient or even intelligent took hold. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds of observation of even most insects to see there is thought and at the very least feelings of self preservation there.
- riehwvfbk 1y agoSelf-reflection seems to be a more computationally expensive task than decision making. The human computer increases its power differently than the accepted mythology suggests. First, the human computer it not an individual brain, it's the entire society with its structure and inter generational transfer of knowledge. The communication between individual "nodes" is part of the structure and the intelligence of the system. We are largely past the myth of intelligent design, will soon be past the myth of unique sentience, and at some point will realize that the myth of individual exceptionalism is also largely a myth. A genius placed outside of society would be unable to achieve anything. The way we seem to get past these myths is simply acquiring more computational power through population growth and better communication. Once a certain threshold of computational power is reached a new transformational idea will appear. It's pretty much accepted that if Marconi wasn't around to "invent" the radio, someone else would (indeed, almost every country has a claim to such an inventor). These things are part of the zeitgeist, and it seems that "zeitgeist" is sort of similar to "next token prediction" in many ways. I am sure that these thoughts will be deeply unpopular, but I am starting to see them more and more. Our working model of the world is shifting.
- jpease 1y agoChimps strike stones against trees as communication. Communication translated: “You see this stone? Get any closer and you’re next, Timmy. Seriously. I’m in no kind of mood to be messed with today.”