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Linguistic verbalization and its implication for animal communication
Abstract
The words “do animals talk to each other the way people do?” are fighting words in the fields of animal and linguistic research. A lot of people are still emotionally invested with the idea that language is the one thing that makes human beings unique. Language, to them, is sacrosanct. It is
the last boundary standing between man and beast. Now even this “final boundary” is being challenged. In the West, specifically, the US, Mexico and Germany, studies have shown that animals of different species have lots of wonder going on in their colonies. They have communication systems that include nouns, verbs, and adjectives. They can, with their calls, tell one another what kind of predator is approaching – man, hawk, coyote, dog etc. along with other prevailing situations described. Evidence seems strong that prairie dogs, for instance, are not born knowing the calls the way a baby is born knowing how to cry. They have to learn it. A language philosopher might claim that what goes on among animals is not “real” language; but the case against animal language is getting weaker. Different linguists have somewhat different definitions of language, but everyone agrees to its “semanticity”, “productivity” and “displacement”. That these also form major characteristics of communication systems of animal suffices. This study therefore remains part of the rich seam of innovative ideas that scholars have mined in the fields of mammalogy and ornithology with a view to seeing what goes on with respect to mammalian and avian wild lives communication behaviours.
the last boundary standing between man and beast. Now even this “final boundary” is being challenged. In the West, specifically, the US, Mexico and Germany, studies have shown that animals of different species have lots of wonder going on in their colonies. They have communication systems that include nouns, verbs, and adjectives. They can, with their calls, tell one another what kind of predator is approaching – man, hawk, coyote, dog etc. along with other prevailing situations described. Evidence seems strong that prairie dogs, for instance, are not born knowing the calls the way a baby is born knowing how to cry. They have to learn it. A language philosopher might claim that what goes on among animals is not “real” language; but the case against animal language is getting weaker. Different linguists have somewhat different definitions of language, but everyone agrees to its “semanticity”, “productivity” and “displacement”. That these also form major characteristics of communication systems of animal suffices. This study therefore remains part of the rich seam of innovative ideas that scholars have mined in the fields of mammalogy and ornithology with a view to seeing what goes on with respect to mammalian and avian wild lives communication behaviours.
