Do animals have language? New research is changing scientists’ understanding of how different creatures communicate with each other.
The goose with an awful lot to say
Do animals have language? New research is changing scientists' understanding of how different creatures communicate with each other.
You are walking through the woods in the middle of Spring. Bluebells on the ground, new leaves on the trees, and the branches a racket of birdsong. Then you open a translation app on your phone and put in a pair of earbuds. Now you can hear every word the birds are saying.
Perhaps this sounds unlikely. But scientists are now using computer technology to understand how animals communicate. Their research has shown that the noises birds make contain much more information than humans first realised.
For example, greylag geese have at least 10 different calls. Moustached warbler chicks will jump or duck depending on different kinds of warning cry. Superb fairywren mothers sing to their eggs, producing a distinctive sound for hatching chicks.1
Computer analysis of birdsong is revealing how subtle these sounds are. Birds' calls enable them to distinguish family members, friends and enemies. They even allow them to communicate the type of predatorsAnimals that prey on and eat other animals. around and how best to respond.
Scientists have started using machine learningA field of artificial intelligence that aims to use data to teach machines to "learn" for themselves without the need for specific programming. to recognise different types of birdsong. The result is the Merlin app, which can identify 1,400 different species of bird. Animal-communication expert Mike Webster, who helped develop the app, claims "a lot of people have dreams of using AI to allow us to decipherFiguring out or decoding. what animals are saying".2
But not everyone believes this will be possible. Most scientists draw a line between language and communication. Birds, dogs, cows - they may make sounds to communicate. But language is related to thought, self-expression, even self-consciousness.
According to the language researcher Robert Berwick, it is best to think of language "not as speech but as a cognitiveRelating to the processes of thinking and reasoning. ability in the mind that sometimes leads to speech".3 The most famous researcher in this field, the American professor Noam Chomsky, argues that the idea animals - even close relatives like chimps - could learn language is "totally meaningless".4
Speech changes how humans think about other animals. Many people justify keeping dogs as pets, or farming cows for food, because they lack the complex intelligence of human beings. But, if birds have a language of their own, that argument is harder to sustain.
Even if we could translate all the sounds animals make, that does not mean we could speak with them. Ludwig Wittgenstein, the 20th-century Austrian philosopher, said that: "If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."5
To understand a language, we also need to understand the context behind it. There are many things humans take for granted that would confuse or frighten an animal. The problem is not the different sounds we make, but the different worlds we live in.
Thanks to apps like Merlin, more and more people are learning to identify birds. Meanwhile, social media accounts share the beauty of birdsong around the world. Even if we never learn to speak with the animals, it is still worth listening to what they say.
Do animals have language?
Yes: Computer analysis is starting to show the complex ways that animals communicate. People only refuse to call this language because they want to make humans seem special.
No: Language does not simply require communication, but also complex thought and self-expression. The instinctive calls made by birds cannot be compared to human speech.
Or... Even if we could translate animal speech, we will never share the worldview that it expresses. But animal communication is worth studying for its own sake.
Keywords
Predators - Animals that prey on and eat other animals.
Machine learning - A field of artificial intelligence that aims to use data to teach machines to "learn" for themselves without the need for specific programming.
Decipher - Figuring out or decoding.
Cognitive - Relating to the processes of thinking and reasoning.
The goose with an awful lot to say
Glossary
Predators - Animals that prey on and eat other animals.
Machine learning - A field of artificial intelligence that aims to use data to teach machines to "learn" for themselves without the need for specific programming.
Decipher - Figuring out or decoding.
Cognitive - Relating to the processes of thinking and reasoning.