Waam Tech
ANIMALS, HUMANS, AND LANGUAGE
Anders Holmberg
One of the properties we have as humans which makes us different from other species is a capacity for acquiring and using a form of language which is far more complex than the language, or system of communication, of any other species. This capacity has been crucial for the evolution of human technology and human society, providing us with a huge advantage over other species. The advantage derives not just from the fact that human language is a superior instrument of communication between people, but it is also a superior instrument for the acquisition of knowledge and for storing knowledge, and importantly, it is an instrument for rational thought.
What is it exactly that makes human language so special, though? After all, animals, too, can communicate with each other, although the messages that they convey are generally speaking very limited in terms of their content, compared to the messages that we can convey using human language. Our language is richer and more complex than animal systems of communication, but the question is whether it is also qualitatively different, not just quantitatively different (more sounds, more words, more complex structures), from any means of communication that animals have at their disposal. The best way to find out is to compare human natural language to animal “languages”, i.e. systems of communication used by animals .
There are other species that have communication systems characterized by a certain degree of complexity, for instance, some songbirds, dolphins, monkeys and apes, and even some insects: honey bees can convey information to each other about the location of a source of nectar by moving their body in a certain pattern. Furthermore, we know that certain animals, although they don‟t use a language with human characteristics under natural conditions, are capable of learning certain parts, or aspects, of human language, up to a certain level. For
Anders Holmberg
One of the properties we have as humans which makes us different from other species is a capacity for acquiring and using a form of language which is far more complex than the language, or system of communication, of any other species. This capacity has been crucial for the evolution of human technology and human society, providing us with a huge advantage over other species. The advantage derives not just from the fact that human language is a superior instrument of communication between people, but it is also a superior instrument for the acquisition of knowledge and for storing knowledge, and importantly, it is an instrument for rational thought.
What is it exactly that makes human language so special, though? After all, animals, too, can communicate with each other, although the messages that they convey are generally speaking very limited in terms of their content, compared to the messages that we can convey using human language. Our language is richer and more complex than animal systems of communication, but the question is whether it is also qualitatively different, not just quantitatively different (more sounds, more words, more complex structures), from any means of communication that animals have at their disposal. The best way to find out is to compare human natural language to animal “languages”, i.e. systems of communication used by animals .
There are other species that have communication systems characterized by a certain degree of complexity, for instance, some songbirds, dolphins, monkeys and apes, and even some insects: honey bees can convey information to each other about the location of a source of nectar by moving their body in a certain pattern. Furthermore, we know that certain animals, although they don‟t use a language with human characteristics under natural conditions, are capable of learning certain parts, or aspects, of human language, up to a certain level. For
References: Frisch, Karl von. 1967. The dance language and orientation of bees. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Gardner R.A. and Gardner B.T. 1969. Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee. Hailman, J.P. and Ficken, M.S. 1986. Combinatorial animal communication with computable syntax: chickadee calling qualifies as „language‟ by structural linguistics. Hailman, J.P., Ficken, M.S., and Ficken R.W. 1987. Constraints on the structure of combinatorial “chick-a-dee” calls Hauser, Marc D. 1996. The evolution of communication. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Hockett, Charles. 1960.The origin of speech. Scientific American 203: 88-96. Ingram, D. 1989. First language acquisition: Methods, description, and explanation. Mammen, D.L. & Nowicki, S. 1981. Individual differences and within-flock convergence in chickadee calls Michelsen, Axel. 1999. The dance language of honeybees: Recent findings and problems Nowicki, S. 1983. Flock-specific recognition of chickadee calls. Behavioral ecological sociobiology 12: 317-320. Nowicki, S. & Nelson, D.A. 1990. Defining natural categories in acoustic signals: omparison of three methods applied to “chick-a-dee” call notes Seyfarth, R.M., Cheney, D.L. and Marler, P. 1980. Monkey responses to three different alarm calls Steinberg, D.D., Nagata, H. and Aline, D.P. 2001. Psycholinguistics: Language, mind, and world Terrace, Herbert. 1983. Apes who “talk”: Language or projection of language by their teachers? In Language in primates Egnor, R., Miller, C., Hauser, M.D. 2004. ‟Non-human primate communication‟. Fitch, W.T. & M. Hauser. 2004. „Computational constraints on syntactic processing in a non-human primate.‟ Science 303: 377-380. Hauser, M.D. & Fitch, W.T. 2003. „What are the uniquely human components of the language faculty?‟