Review of Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication | Hacker News Reader

Review of Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication

literaryreview.co.uk

43 pointstintinnabula16 comments

Ed Yong's book An Immense World is an incredible exploration of one of the questions raised in this review, which is what animals talk about. He explains the incredible array of senses animals have and how those shape their worlds (Umwelten, in biology terms). If we want to understand how and why animals communicate, seeing the world from their point of view is essential, and Yong does a brilliant job of that. His book will pair well with this one.

Wasn't there a study a few years ago that had identified a rudimentary language in bats.

It was just 3-4 words/concepts like:

'i don't like you'

'don't want to sleep next to you'

'like you'.

> just 3-4 words

Isn't that quite profound? I'd wager these concepts will get you a long way in any language.

pedantry: many non-human animals communicate, in that they create signals with understood meanings; what appears to be special about language is that using it, one can string the same symbols together in different orders, and the understood meaning changes.

Tomato / Potato

We discovered animals using 'words'.

NO, that isn't what we meant by language, because then humans wouldn't be special.

Animal language comes from their genes, it is equivalent to laughter and crying and body language of humans. You can do a lot with just those, you can cry and point and you properly communicate that you are sad because of a thing etc.

Human then have another level of language above that that we invented, there is no evidence of animals having anything like that. We can teach an animal to understand some words, but then that animal wont teach their kids to do it, it is a one time thing so they aren't anything like human language learning and culture.

Humans are not special.

independent of how you meant your comment …

Phrases like that are meaningless without criteria.

Even opposite extremes like “nothing is special”, vs. “everything is special” can be viewed as both true, given sympathetic readings of each phrase’s presumed criteria.

The parent commenter already specified the criteria: "Humans are special because we utilize language."

I am here to tell you: No, humans are not special. Yes, animals (and plants and most other lifeforms) all have some form of language.

Humans are not special.

Well, yes they are. No animal comes close to how we communicate and internalize our communication skills, and naturally externalize them with visual symbols, invented hand signs, etc. even before we extended all that to formal writing systems for our languages, like we are using right now.

I am optimistic about whales & dolphins having some level a real of language. But best possible scenarios don’t come near us.

I think you mean “communication”. Yes, even bacteria communicate, so we are not special in communicating. Which for us would include our instinctive facial and body responses, our scent, etc.

Special doesn't mean "we do and they don't", we both utilise language, but Humans' do it to a much higher degree.

I don't see Chimpanzees typing to other Chimps across the world on a Hackernews forum. That is special and is unlike anything else in the animal kingdom.

That seems to be satisfied by the existence of "like/dislike" modifiers (and possibly directional/proximity modifiers, if the example given is accurate to the research).

Yes, the research is coming out of this lab: https://www.yovelbatlab.com/publications

"What's it like to be a bat" posed the question; "the character of cats" (horses; or dogs) goes some way towards answering it. Does the reviewed work extend our knowledge? Do I really need to sign up to find out? Animal communication certainly is an interesting topic IMHO but yet another rehash of "animals see things differently" is, I suspect, just click bait. Tell me if it's a descent litt survey.

From the review: "But is any of this really language? Kershenbaum shrewdly sidesteps the question." Of course he does, because it would ruin his thesis. He'd rather use the word "talk" because it's vague enough that he can use it without being called out, yet sounds meaningful enough to the common person that it sounds like he's saying something, while at the same time pulling in all kinds of feelings about how nice or smart some animals are. (And yes, I've had pet birds, fish, cats and dogs, and at least the cats and dogs, and maybe the bird, sort of communicate. And they were--one of the cats still is--nice.)

Peter Wohlleben does the same thing in his book "The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate", using the word "communicate". Trees exude certain chemicals when injured or infested, and you can sort of kinda maybe call that communication--but of course you can't call it language.

Our dog has surprisingly rich "vocabulary". That is, the modulation of sounds she can make is surprisingly high. She "talks" to us in the evenings and tries to convince us that she needs some extra food (her weight says otherwise). There definitely is an apparatus for quite evolved communication only if we could somehow agree on the communication protocol.

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