I do English Language in college, and my friend asked me the other day, “Why is human language (use of grammar etc) so different to animals AND why can’t animals learn language?” I do have a bit of background in the subject but not that much compared to some of you guys probably so feel free to enlighten me as much as possible!
Also, if someone could point me in the direction of the thread about “what is the % difference between races” I’d be very grateful as I have searched 13 pages but to no avail.
It boils down to how their brains are wired and the physical shape of their vocal chords. Their brain isn’t set up for processing language and the vocal chords ensure that even if they could learn language, they couldn’t speak as humans do.
Sweat glands.
Lot’s of animals have language, in a limited form. What separates us from animals is the sweat glands.
You’ve probaly heard of (the myth) dogs ‘sweating with their tongues’. That’s not really accurate. Dogs release excessive heat by panting. As long as your mouth and throat is busy removing heat from your system, it can’t be used to create more complex langauge. Dogs and other animals are restricted to comminicate with imperatives or exclamations: Hey! How you doin’!? Hey! Hey? Stay away! Danger! Interesting… Yummy! Yucky! Horny! Hungry!
Leaving the respiratory system free of the obligtion of panting, and leaving only a few grunting sounds and respirtion, let us start adding complexity to the grunting, and enabled language.
As the owner of two hairless dogs, I can attest that dogs do indeed sweat. Not as profusely as humans (their main heat loss mechanism is still panting), but when I pick them up, you can feel the latent tackiness of dried sweat on their skin.
Some articles dealing with the nature of the human brain in relation to language:
(Basically, humans appear to be the only critter with the specifically developed regions of the brain for language.)
My boxer has hair, but not the undercoat (…don’t know technical name in English, to laze to look it up) but when he’s worked really hard or it’s very hot outside, I notice it on him, too.
Not panting isn’t the only reason, of course, but I threw it out there as another piece of info, which comes from the BBC series “Walking with cavemen”.
As a somewhat obvious side note, some species of parrots can obviously emulate our language vocally. Some, if trained, can develope quite large vocabularies, comparable with a very young child IIRC.
I’m trying to teach my cat the difference between “out” and “food” - she uses the same ‘miaow, headbutt ankle, rub face on furniture’ routine for both and it’s confusing me greatly…
My old cat (R.I.P) had a terrific ‘vocabulary’ (in that she understood lots of phrases), there was never any confusion as to whether she wanted to be fed, or go out, or sit on the windowsill, or lay on my bed…
A previous (also R.I.P.) cat could tell the time. “you be back by 10” and he’d be at the door, scratching, at 10 on the dot. I tried to catch him out by saying 5 to 10, but he was too smart for me and was at the door at 5 to…
I believe (perhaps somewhat contrary to qualified authorities on the subject) that talking parrots are capable of doing just a little bit more than just uncomprehendingly mimicking sounds. I would never go as far as to suggest that they can intelligently converse, but I do think there is some sense in which they know that certain sounds are connected with certain things (and not just connected with actions, but concepts).
Yes, they do have forms of communication-- it’s just not verbal. Dogs, for example, are extremely attuned to body language. They communicate with one another using postures and when living with humans, watch them very closely for cues as how to act.
My dogs try to “tell” me things all the time. My youngest will whine and then dash between me and the door, trying to get me to follow him to what he wants. My eldest dog will stand by her bowl and give a soft “whoof!” completely unlike her normal bark to indicate she wants it filled.
So yes, dogs do communicate. They’re just not all that great at verbal communication. In fact, a lot of dogs learn more easily if you use hand signals in conjunction with commands because body language is their “first language.”. A puppy has to learn that the sounds we make actually *mean *something and then they have to learn what actions are connected with those sounds. Sometimes, a puppy’s natural confusion at this is taken as “disobedience” when really, it’s just a language barrier.
Think about it this way: Imagine an alien ship landed. The aliens come out and start pushing their hands into your face, poking your cheeks and lips. It might be a while before you catch onto the fact that they communicate by touching different areas of the face and then it would take you a while to figure out what the different touches meant.
One more, WHY haven’t other animals evolved the appropriate vocal organs and brains? I know vervet monkeys have intricate calls for danger and such but why couldn’t they produce words such as “Valedictorian”? Why is it specifically only humansthat have evolved like this with such complex grammar and vocabulary?
The global ecological niche for “critters what talk” is already taken?
The exact circumstances behind humanity’s evolution of language still are not understood at all. One specific feature of our vocal tract appears to serve no purpose but language: the fact that the larynx drops down after birth, creating a resonant cavity to permit the production of speech sounds, while simultaneously increasing the risk of choking on food. And we appear to have parts of our brain specifically devoted to language, but this is not as clear-cut as it’s often presented. Most experts agree that humans have a specific evolved capacity for language but what exactly this amounts to is touch to explain. It may be, for instance, that complex, human-like language really can’t exist without the extraordinary level of intelligence humans have - no other animal is remotely as intelligent as we are, and it might be that language itself is fundamentally dependent on that intelligence. Intelligence comes with enormous costs - our brains consume huge amounts of energy, make childbirth rather more difficult, and so on - so there’s plenty of selective pressure against becoming any smarter than necessary.
OTOH, it might be reversed. When we slowly started to commmunicate in a more varied form, our brains grew larger to be able to handle the information. After all, there’s no point in developing higher intelligence, if there’s nothing to be intelligent about.
Just sayin’.
