Since the Peripatetics, it has just been taken for granted that what separates human beings (
Homo sapiens sapiens) from the animals is language. If you are one to frequent
article/blog clearinghouses like
linguistics.AllTop.com, you have seen a plethora or articles over the last few weeks on animals that seem to be capable of recognizing and categorizing nouns as well as on those capable of detailed naming.
As someone who wrote their undergraduate thesis on
glottogony, I found these case studies incredibly interesting. It is a popular belief among linguists that human language began with gestures. Grunts, or some other sort of unsophisticated phonemes, often accompanied the grunts. (Think of a child reaching for an out-of-reach object and going “Mih, mih, kooooo!”) The grunts correlated with the gestures and soon the phonemes replaced the gestures altogether (as our theoretical child would come to say, “Mih, mihk” for a milk bottle).
These two case studies, to me, throw a wrench in the gestural theory. In the case of the dog, the owners spent several years training Chaser so one cannot truly say that what the dog learned was a “natural language.” However, the dog learned to categorize the toys on its own, seems to be able to separate nouns and verbs, and does not react to nonsensical commands (e.g., fetch your sit, Chaser). Chaser’s vocabulary can be chalked up entirely to proper training, but in many respects, that is how one learns a language. This is definitely a case study of a well-trained dog more than a case study on languages in animals, but it does present the possibility that dogs do have the capability to learn sophisticated verbal language. Is this capability just an unused linguistic capacity in the wild? Does it need a “trainer” to be unlocked? Have members of the genera Lupis and Canis been passing down simple, verbal communications without using their full potential, or have humans just not unlocked it?
Chaser’s training does not prohibit the possibility of gestural beginnings to the dog’s extensive vocabulary (the owners pointing to or shaking a toy while saying its name to the collie), but the story of the prairiedogs seems to be a strong case for a non-gestural generation of language. Now, it is possible that a prairie dog sacrifices himself by running up to a coyote yelling the “chee” assigned to large, grey coyote and another does the same for small, brownish coyote; or, that one “points” at a blade of grass and “chees” green, but both seem unlikely. The specificity and complexity of the “chees” (especially apparent when broken down by frequency and gradually re-layered, as in the article) indicate that the prairiedogs have a very strong system of nomenclature. A feat considered even more impressive considering that juvenile prairie dogs seem to be rushed into their dens the moment a “chee” indicating a predator is called, this probably before the juveniles can even see from what they are hiding.
These case studies are not proof positive that the gestural theory of language is unlikely, but they do show that perhaps the “language barrier” between human beings and other animals is only present due to a lack of understanding on our part. Perhaps humans had verbal language long before we were Homo sapiens. How far does the lineage go back: Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Ardipithecus, Primata, Mammalia, earlier? It may be time to rethink the vain theory that only hominids have verbal language and time to listen to what biologists have been finding for decades.
What separates humans from animals? Uh, um... Intellectual debate on what makes us different?
“Every clarification breeds new questions.” – Arthur Bloch
With the boon of a new toy, I decided to re-take up learning Young Avestan. A task I had given up last summer after a period of intellectual stagnation. Over the next several weeks/months, I will restart the Harvard course that brought me to Avestan and begin anew with my new favorite grammar text from Avesta.org. The Harvard course focuses on learning by the grammar-translation approach and has so far catered most to my learning styles. Especially important is that it works mostly in the early Persian script - fonts for which can be found here - courtesy of William Malandra and Emily Blanchard West. Having these fonts active on your computer will be necessary to use my Anki flashcards. Unfortunately, all vocabulary appears transcribed, which is know to diminish faculty in the target language. 