Animal “Languages” ‘No matter how eloquently « dog may bark, he cannct tell you that his parents were poor but honest. Betand Rise The atculated signs of human language ae not ke the expression (of emotions of children or animals. Animal noises cant be cor. bined 10 form sylobies. esos ‘mony. There would probably be a reduction in crime and quite possibly an increase in the divorce rate. All of us would have to alter our behavior in some way or another, for our environment would be considerably changed. ‘animals is as old and as widespread figure in many s. And there is hardly an animal who does not figure in Aesop's famous fables. Many authors have exploited the idea successfully, ‘among them Hugh Lofting, the creato famous Doctor Dol ‘good doctor's forte was animal com ‘most prodigious language learner, are fantasies for children, and the and his adventures 18 with our fellow ani- fellow human tenants Whether language is the exclusive property of the human species isan in teresting question. The answer depends on what properties of human lan ‘guage are considered. If language is viewed only as a system of communic tion, then obviously many species communicate, Humans other than their language to relate to each other and to send understand human language one needs to see what, 346 already seen that language is a system which relates sounds and meanings (or gestures and meanings). "*Talking”” birds such as parrots and mynah birds are capable of faithfully reproducing words and phrases of human language. The birds heard, But when a parrot says “Polly wants a cracker ther, regardless lerances" carry of whether people are ariving ot depart The language when ing. They are speaking neither English nor not spontaneously produce, as children do, “*Polly wants ly wants a bagel.” If she learns car and cats and dog and -n learns parrot, she will be unable to “form the plural” parrots that the ability to use to produce speech or and yet they cannot speak as we do, that is, so as to give evidence (of what they say. On the other hand, men who,848 The Biological Aspects of Language ‘We shall examine various animal communication systems to see whether reatures share with humans the ability to learn and use languages The Birds ‘The birds and animals ae ofr to eachother, ond there are no dsputes about anything, Tey otal, ond they al tlk to ‘me, bu itm beaforetgn language, fol cannes make out @ word they sy. ere is a complex system for courtship. ‘The male spider, before he approaches his lady love, goes through an elabo- rate series of gestures to inform her 4 spider and not a crumb or a fly to be eaten. These gestures are invariant. One never finds a /e" spider changing or adding to the particular courtship ritual of his . and posture of the body never change from one time 10 another or from one erab to another the signal means, itis fixed. Only one meaning can be conveyed. There set of fiddler crab “sentences.” roken, i calls and songs of many species of birds do have a commu ‘and they resemble human languages in that there may be the same species, and insofar as the songs of some species , nesting, flocking, and so on, iy a more advanced form of communica ss comprise a smal the bird's" lar systems of calls wi fixed range of meanings. ‘None of these displays the crea ith human language. Bird songs ate longer, more complex pattems of notes than bird calls, which are used to “stake out" territory and to attract mates. In some species the same song is used for both purposes; other species use different songs. Despite the complexity of bird songs there is no evidence of any internal ngs cannot be segmented into independently meaningful parts ‘an language can often be segmented into morphemes. Often to do with the actual mes- Animal “Languages” 349 sage. Ina study of the territorial song ofthe European robin? it was discov- ered that the rival robins paid attention only to the alternation between high- pitched and low-pitched notes, and which came frst didn't matter at all, The message Varies only to the extent of expressing how strongly the robin feels bout his possession and to what extent he is prepared to defend it and start ly in that territory. The different alternations ther i m to express many different “ut have different meanings In Chapter 8 human I ‘The same sentence in E sound different —that is, has been observed among finch varies depending on the geographical area that the message is the same, but the “pronunciation” or form is different. 8 occurs in certain songs of the chaffinch and of other species as ng bird will exhibit a basic version of the song shortly sr on undergo further learning in acquiring its mn of the song. Since birds from the same brood will ac- depending on the area in which they finally settle, we varia of it may be innate. To what degree human language is innate and to what degree species to produce one. The same is true for the songs of some bird such as the cuckoo, which wi developed song even if it for example the bull- bird is exposed to ev chaffinch will sing the song of its species in a simple, degraded form, even if it has never heard it sung, but full form of its dialect area after hearing it. The chaffinch acquires its fully developed song in sev- eral stages, just as human children appear to acquire language in several stages, as discussed in Chapter 10. Ifa chaffinch is isolated from other birds at any stage, its song will not develop further. of view of human language research the ‘and learned aspects of the chaffinch song is very interes song is biologically determined, but ich as Chomsky, think that the are, of course, among the Despite certain supertic mation dans le850 The Biological Aspects of Language fundamentally different kinds of communicative systems. They terms of the messages that can be conveyed, and thus lack the creative element of human language. And the Bees Bees or very busy sous Honeybees have return to the hive and twenty feet or so. The sickle dance indi- distance from the hive, approximately {wenty to sixty fet, The tal wagging dance ifr distances that exceed sixty feet. dance, besides approximate cistance, fs the quality ofthe food source, This ted by the number of repetitions of the ye bee ‘with which it performs the dance. This feature is and quality (see Figure Figure 11-1 The sickle dance. In this ease the food source is the hive A species oft might say tht ier from species to species. We S” of honeybee "language.”" Animal “Languages” 352 ‘The tail-wagging dance imparts all the information of the sickle dance with ‘one important addition. The number of rej pattern of the dance indicates the precise distance: the slower the repetition rate, the longer the distance (see Figure 11-2). Figure 11-2 The tail-wagging dance, The number of times per minute the bee dances a complete pattern (I~2~1~3) indicates the distance from the food source. distance twenty-five times farther away than the food source The bee had no way of communicating the special cireumstanc sage. This absence of creativity makes the bees’ dance qualitatively different from human language. s dance is also diffe ls and songs, in that mined behavior. Experiments have shown t ‘municate a more accurate message than novices, so certain refin the language may be learned, but a forager bee out for the first time will re- the hive and dance the appropriate dance of its species. us chapters we have discussed the property ofthe arbitrariness of i sign. In all human languages the relationshi the sounds) and the meaning of a word or phrase is arbitrary. What clearly arbitrary, for there is nothing inherent about vivaci cates good or bad quality. In fact, we have been careful not to say whether ates a greater or lesser quality source of food. Because352 The Biological Aspects of Language they stand for. “Arbitrariness" ‘uage in the sense of human lang Descartes pointed out more tham th nication systems of animals are qu: used by humans: wundred years ago that y different from the language Descartes goes on to state that one of the major ‘humans and animals is that human use of language \n systems provide evidence for ‘bound messages of ani- ed by the human animal. si, the playful dolphin, Why they ike suimmin ike 1 ike golphin, Ogden Nah, The Pog” Researchers are stil trying to prove Descartes wrong. For a while the dolphin, the “monkey of the sea,” appeared to be a good candidate for refuting the claim that unique to humans. The dol- phin has a brain comparat bral cortex, is very wrinkl the wrinkling is due to is even less complex human brain, However, ss of the cerebral cortex; the dolphin's brai at of a rabbit, having fewer nerve cel jeed use sounds to communicate. Dol other dolphins. They are sonar detection sounds; duce them to help locate objects which may get in their way, 3 fam 19 On by Oden wnces under water. The “songs” are very long and display complex 31 Variations but no one as yet has figured out what they mean, if anything. They do not seem to produce pre- dictable responses in other whales. ‘A number of experiments have been conducted with whales and dolphins id paddle and “inform” the male by her calls to press his right-hand paddle too. Ifa flashing light appeared, the female had to press the left-hand paddle and again call out to hand paddle. Only if both responded correctly woul ‘male could not see either th gist Pavlov trained dogs to saliv heard a bell by giving them food whenever a bel even when the male could see the lights for himself, and in fact even wi the male was taken out of the tank. Her calls therefore had little to do with icate with the male. She performed because she had 10 believing the paddle-pressing and signal-giving would reward her with fish. She didn’t really seem to care whether the male was fed to associate a would fill his systems provide evidence for Des- timulus-bound messages of animals, ability possessed by the human animal. The Chimpanzees Children, behold the Chimpanzee: He sits on the ancestral tree From which we sprang in ages gone. Tm glad we sprang: had we held on, We might, for aught that I ean say, Be horrid Chimpanzees to-day. (Over Heron, “A C's Paine of Natural istry” In Noel356 The Biological Aspects of Language ch she understood, and she carried out both tasks correc ‘was given the sentence she Serah insert apple pail banana dish in which the second occurrence of the two “words” Sarah and insert is Teted."” Sarah understood this sentence to mean “put the apple in the and the banana in the dish,” rather than “put the apy and banan: she correctly grouped together apple wi id banana Pe rather than incorrectly grouping pail with banana, and she did not put the apple, pail, and banana in the dish, as the word order would suggest. Based on this experiment Premack and others have suggested that when ‘Sarah processes a sentence she does more than link words in simple linear order. ‘She imposes subgroupings on the words, just as humans do (cf ‘To avoid these and other problems, in 1973 Duane Rumbaugh and his associates began to work with Lana, who was a 24-year-old chimpanzee, Instead of being taught to arrange plastic chips, Lana was taught to push buttons on a computer console located in her room. On each button is drawn lation, entertainment, and so on. An example of a sentence addressed to the machine is please machine give Lana piece of apple ‘a composite of one or more basic geomé placed on a background that can be one of three different color Teamed to regard word order as significant in producing composite mean- ings. The experiment with Lena has one experiments with primates. All of Lana’ corded by the computer. Such record ke: the case because ASL is a human language, and the chip and lexigram ‘many researchers believe the use of ASL has advantages in the effort to explore primate intellectual and pacity and how it ‘compares with human language and other cog s. In ich sign language to primates. One of these involved a gorilla named Koko. Koko was taught several hundred signs by her trainer at Stanford University, Francine ‘Anima “Languages” 357 CChimpsky, was taught ASL by hi . S. Terrace, under careful experimental condit igh record keep” ing and many hours of video taping. Nim's teachers hoped to show beyond a reasonable doubt that chimpanzees had a humanlike linguistic capacity jion to statements by Noam Chomsky that human language is another. As possible evidence tha cers observed that the sign for than 75 percent of ‘Nim used sign language to express ime. -motional state when he was upset. ” and atthe same time show his teeth once having expressed his ‘ould express ly, as humans in a clear anger by signing, an emotion symbol often do. ‘The outstanding feature of presented pri ined the data, which caused them doubt many of the Washoe, Sarah, Lana, Koko, and othe: - the Video tapes of Nim's conversation: researchers concluded that the way Nim signed cantly different than the way a child converses or signs w percent of Nim's were spontaneous, and ofthe 8 's responses were ful and the excessive mand use teachers signing, researchers began to examine films of Washoe, Koko, andB54 The Biological Aspects of Language ‘The more nonprimate at al communication systems we iguage is uniquely human. Those imited set of fixed messages, or tion have been closely studied for simiarit their natural habi to human language. In. es communicate with each other in systems that lany of these seem immediate environment or 1e8s and subordination. Females of some species emi ing that they are anestrous (sexually quiescent, that attempts by ‘duced by all nonhuman primates show that their si typed and limited in terms of the messages they conve studies of such animal communi ‘They have no way of expressing the anger they felt yesterday or the anticipa- tion for tomorrow. Despite the primitive qualities of nonhuman primate natural systems of communication, there has been an interest in whether these animals may Gua understood age. But she never went beyond that. And as we have already seen, comprehension of Ianguage involves more than under- standing the meani words. When their son could understand the difference betweer I mean and I mean what I say, Gua could ‘A chimpanzee named Viki was too learned a number of with great difficulty the words mama, papa, extent of her language production. Psychologists Allen and Beatrice Gardner recogni tage suffered by the prim. fbuman language is trous, however, and this ican Sign Language to 2 which they lived and raised the cl brought up in much the same way asa human child might be, except that she he presence of people who used ASL, and she was delib- According (0 the Jhments are compar: ‘There is much debate concerning in this chapter. ‘At about the same time that Washoe was growing up under the Gardners’ David Premack undertook to teach a chimpanzee ial Ianguage designed to resemble human languages in isted of differently shaped and col- backed. Sarah and her trainers 1ese symbols on a magnetic board. sid a small blue rectangle meant ‘hese and others revealed that Sarah learned words correspond- abstract concepts as" and “different from,” symbol to represer ‘The forms of these symbols are arbitrarily related to their meanings. For that means “red, Sarah was apparet of syntax and semantics. For example, given the sentence 1f Sarah put red on green, Mary give Sarah chi Sarah would dutifully place a red card on top ofa green card and collect her reward. The sentence If Sarah put green on red, Mary give Sarah chocolate evoked the response of placing a green car ‘Sarah was capable of underst was first taught to respond corr such as Sarah insert apple pail Sarah insert banana dish ‘These are commands or the apple in the pail” or “put the banana in the dish.” Later Sarah was given the “compound” sentence ‘Sarah insert apple pail Sarah insert banana dish858 The Biological Aspects of Language conclusions. Much of what appeared to be fact prompted by occurrences of the same signs in the g discourse. ig chimpanzees are also unlike humans in that when several of them similar circumstances, and the signing that does take place is generally con- fined to such subj ing and pl Sarah also took prompts from her t plastic chip sentenc ‘ognize and act on s ers and her environment to produce ‘a chimpanzee’s ability to rec- le cues than a true linguistic ability. In responding to Sarah insert apple pail banana dis all Sarah had to figure out was to place certain fruits in certain containers, ‘and she could do this by merely seeing that the apple symbol was next to the id the banana symbol performance was anyt that Lana used to receive rewards, Lana. ‘may have simply learned that under the appropriate circumstances, if she pressed certain keys on a computer console in a certain order, sh receive a reward. The fact that her trainers associated certain combinations of keys with certain semantic concepts does not necessarily mean that Lana ‘was also doing so. Lana's behavior can be interpreted as conditioned re- sponses, and such behavior can be taught to pigeons or rats. In the ease of the chimpan- roduced in a deliberate, -. When parents speak to children they do not confine rds in a particular order for months, rewarding the tha chocolate bar or a banana each time the lear language, as pointed out in jormal children, although they require exposure to language, are not taught fanguage the way Sarah and Lana were taughy The question of whether any nonhuman primates have a humanlike lin- Animal “Languages” 359 search for the answers 10 one kind of que have led to many advances in our understanding of prim: Premack, Sarah's original trainer, is now carrying out experiments to test i knowledge of causality: can a chimpanzee associate a picture ‘picture of a knife? Lana's tra of an apple cut in half wi wrainers are presently ties of severely retarded or autistic humans. ‘There is s ty to learn language is simply the nether itis due to a specific appears to possess a brain than does the ehimpan- marter” than 'smart™ re system has devel- {is remotely as complex as human language, even with the interven- tion of human teachers. If other species have the ability equivalent to the ; one wonders why it has never been put to use. It the kind of language learned and used by humans remains tunique to the specie: Darwin expressed is view in The Descent of Man: 1d more, the vocal organs would have been strength= inher progenitor of man mi ‘ape, before even the most speech could have come into use... « ‘SUMMARY inguage is defined merely as.a system of communicatior is not unique to humans. There are, however, certait hhuman language that are not found in the communicat other species. A basic property of human language to string together discrete860 The Biological Aspects of Language fear, and’ warnings, are emitted. But the communication systems are fixed ‘s-bound. This is not so of human language. have been made to teach nonhuman pri- hat purportedly resemble human language Chimpanzees like Lana have been able to ma- rewards, bi conclusive evidence that of und ‘animal psychology, have ‘human language. species. EXERCISES ‘What do the barking of dogs, the meo ids have in common with human Langt differences? ‘ny communication system in the reasons for your choices in all cases. Uuppose you heard someone say: "My parrot speaks excellent Eny ie even says such complicated sentences as f want jam w this assertion, le gradations of expression by differ- ‘There are eleven postures self-confidence, confident ion, uncertain threat, depression, defensiveness, ac- submission. This seems to be a complex sys- tem, Suppose there were a thousand different emotions which could be expressed in this way. Would you then say a wolf had language similar to a human? If not, why not? 5, Suppose you taught a dog to heel, sit up, beg, roll over, play dead, stay, on command, using the italicized words as cues. Would inguage? Why or why not? 6. What are the properties of Sarah’s language that make it more like human language than like other animal languages? 7. Why have primates, principally chimpanzees, been chosen for attempts to discover whether human language is unique to the human species? 8. Inwhat ways does the use of ASL bythe signing chimpanzees resemble you be teac important for a 10. Suppose that Nim and a female chimpanzee learn sign language, and later, bear offspring. Is the question of whether they teach their offspring, sign language a crucial one? Animal “Languages” 361 11. Chomsky has been quoted as saying: 's about as likely that an ape will prove to have a language ability as that there is an island somewhere witha species of fightless birds Waiting for human beings to teach them to fy. In the light of evidence presented in this chapter, comment on ‘you agree or disagree, or do you think the evi- Penguin, New York. Press. New York Sebeoky A and jen Umer Seok. 180. Speaking of Apes: A Creal Anta ‘ogy of Two-Way Commun ‘Terrace, Herbert 8. 1919, Nim: Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language. Knop. ‘New York. ‘Thorpe, W. H. 1967 smal Vocalizaton and Communi ." In C. H. Millikan . Darley, eds. Brain Mechanisms Underlying Speech and Language. Grune and Stratton. New York. Von Frisch, K. 1967. The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees, trans. by L.E. . Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, Mass.