Hatrack River Forum: Humpback Whale Songs Possess Distinct Syntax

This is topic Humpback Whale Songs Possess Distinct Syntax in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

I know, I know, it's been thought to be true for years, but according to this article there is a study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that establishes it firmly.

Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :

Very cool.

Posted by RyanINPnet (Member # 8363) on :

There is a Journal of the Acoustical Society of America...? See, you DO learn something new everyday.

Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :

Wow, distinct syntax! That's more than you can say for some things you read on the Internet that were posted by humans...

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

[Laugh]

Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :

That is seriously cool. Even apes that have learned sign language have never been able to display any sort of grammar—they just repeat words over and over in a pretty arbitrary manner.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

While that's largely true, Jon Boy, there are exceptions. Kanzi, for example, seems to possess a certain degree of understanding of grammar.

Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :

dori, is that you?

--j_k

Posted by Kristen (Member # 9200) on :

This is neat, but I think it's really far from the point where whales can be ascribed the ability to produce language even somewhat akin to humans.

What separates animal language from human language is that it isn't creative syntactically: they don't have the capability to change "I have food" to "Do you have food?" .

Still, the fact that their language has some sort of organization of constituents is promising indeed!

Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Noemon:
While that's largely true, Jon Boy, there are exceptions. Kanzi, for example, seems to possess a certain degree of understanding of grammar.

Other apes have demonstrated an understanding of grammar, but to my knowledge no ape has demonstrated the ability to use grammar. For instance, Nim Chimpsky's longest utterance was "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." Not exactly a grammatical construction.

Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :

How exciting. [Smile]

Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :

Let me be the first to welcome our new cetacean overlords [Wink]