top 200 commentsshow all 230

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]SportsPanties 33 points34 points ago*

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And on an slightly unrelated note there is culture specific to certain groups of both dolphins and Orcas. By culture they refer to specific, unique hunting techniques and communication.

Orca 1

Orca 2

Dolphin 1

Couldn't find the original paper but will keep looking.

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[–]Badgertime 2 points3 points ago

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[–]SportsPanties 1 point2 points ago

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Damn fine work.

[–]FoolofGod 0 points1 point ago

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I don't know where to find a paper on that, but I heard this as well in a nature documentary.

[–]SportsPanties 0 points1 point ago

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Yeah I read it many years ago but I believe it was on a JSTOR journal of which i have no access to any longer.

[–]Badgertime 1 point2 points ago

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[–]ludofuture 8 points9 points ago

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I am interested in that AMA.

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[–]The_Higgs_Boson 0 points1 point ago

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I too am interested.

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[–]perspexacity 50 points51 points ago

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Would he mind linking us to the study?

[–]this_shall_pass 46 points47 points ago

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there is this documentary about the songs of the humpback whales.

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[–]goinunder0390 13 points14 points ago

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You're a racist bastard, first of all, and second who would ever think to do that to a dolphin?

[–]bushiyigesanmingzhi 97 points98 points ago

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Okay. Now I HAVE to know what was said.

[–]akacheese 11 points12 points ago

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It's like coming into a room and everyone's laughing, but no one will tell you the joke.

[–]by_tor 32 points33 points ago

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There is a BBC article on two distinct species of dolphins finding a "common language" to communicate, although it's most likely a different study.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9045000/9045389.stm

[–]Sconathon 10 points11 points ago

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That's so cool. Pidgin dolphin.

[–]Clutter 7 points8 points ago

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That was about two species of dolphin finding a intermediate system of calls they could use to communicate.

[–]Badgertime 1 point2 points ago

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[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

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If they do, in fact, communicate, what do they "say" to each other? How effective is their communication? Is it only a display of basic emotions/states like cats hissing and meowing, or is it more complex?

[–]aesthetics_k 1 point2 points ago

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maybe this is relevant?

check number 3

[–]redkey42 0 points1 point ago

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What does your dad know about interspecies relationships? This footage between whales and dolphins amazed me.

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[–]breezyfog -2 points-1 points ago

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Kind of off topic, but i'm putting together a web site on dolphins in captivity. How does your dad feel about it? Would be awesome to get some of this thoughts.

[–]robeph 8 points9 points ago

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Private message him on this, not really something for the comments

[–]psygnisfive 122 points123 points ago

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All sorts of species have different "languages". Bird species, for instance, have different songs. Even within species, there is often variation of a culturally transmitted sort. Some species, tho, have fixed, genetically encoded protocols for communicating and they can't be overridden, such as the waggle dances of various European honey bee species.

[–]Rule322 21 points22 points ago

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Shouldn't a songbird singing a different song be more attractive to another one? As I remember, genetics work because the mixing of different genes makes slightly different version of the animal, for better or for worse. (The worse then die and evolution happened) Inbreeding therefor gives less potent offspring. A bird that has evolved somewhere else is bound to have a completely different set of genes and thus would give more potent offspring, right?

In short I am asking if the difference in language is attractive to other birds of the same kind, as implied by some parts of the theory of evolution.

[–]FoxonthestormsStem Cell and Developmental Biology 32 points33 points ago

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The slightly different version of the animal being supposedly stronger is Heterosis or hybrid vigor. It is incorrect to say, "Natural Selection dictates that any cross with a higher degree of genetic variation from the mean will occur with greater frequency than a cross between two individuals of relatively similar genetic background"

Theories of science are not directly implicit. They are a culmination of hundreds of direct observations and based on hypotheses. They do, however, imply where to look next. Here is a meta-analysis paper (a study on a culmination of direct studies) on the repertoire size of birdsong and reprocuctive success.

Any evolutionary behavioral ecologist who posited the hypothesis you just have would probably face a lot of criticism and requests for additional data.

PS. Here's an article about great tits and how their exhibited repertoire can be correlated to other behaviors.

[–]Baconmusubi 4 points5 points ago

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I knew that article wasn't going to be about what I wanted it to be about, but I checked just in case.

[–]Choosing_is_a_sin 2 points3 points ago

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Birdsongs are not genetic; they are learned. If you take a songbird away from its birth population and place it in a population with a different song, they will learn the other song.

[–]FoxonthestormsStem Cell and Developmental Biology 0 points1 point ago

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I think we were talking about repertoire size, not necessarily the actual birdsong. That is an excellent and pertinent point to add nonetheless

[–]happycupcake 0 points1 point ago

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This is true for many birds, but not all. Some birds (eg. flycatchers) seem to develop songs just fine without hearing other birds. Among the species that do learn songs, there is often a considerable genetic component that constrains them to learning only songs that fit a general template.

[–]psygnisfive 0 points1 point ago

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I think it's going to depend greatly on the species. Mocking birds and other similar birds get to various degrees of "difference" depending on the species. Some are incredibly good at reproducing almost any sound (think of those videos you occasionally see of a tropical bird making sounds like a tree-felling machine). For other species of birds, it seems more like there is a well defined class of sounds they produce, and what varies, often over long periods of time, is the repertoire of songs that the local populations sing. Still other species seem remarkably consistent over time in what they sing.

[–]kooluoyedam 2 points3 points ago

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Do you know of any research dealing with the genetic/neurological/physiological differences between species that have varied communication (like songbirds) and species that have fixed communication (like honeybees)?

[–]CallMeNiel 7 points8 points ago

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There is this interesting article about different species of honeybees with different "dialects" of their waggle dance, but they can understand one another.

[–]psygnisfive 0 points1 point ago

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Well, I want to be clear, birdsong isn't communicative in the usual sense. It's more for display purposes, and so it's reasonable to expect it to be more dynamic, despite most aspects being hardcoded.

But no, I don't know of any such research. You might want to ask an ethologist or animal communication specialist.

[–]FoxonthestormsStem Cell and Developmental Biology 2 points3 points ago

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Bees are not birds, can you provide a more appropriate example?

[–]psygnisfive 0 points1 point ago

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Of course bees are not birds. I find it odd that you would think that I was implying otherwise...

[–]FoxonthestormsStem Cell and Developmental Biology 0 points1 point ago

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I did not say that you were implying otherwise. I was hoping you were going to outline an example of a genetically programmed communication method in avain species. Since we were discussing chordates, it is odd for you to suddenly jump to an arthropod example, one in a completely different phylum, without explicitly mentioning it.

[–]psygnisfive 0 points1 point ago

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Oh, well, I don't study animal communication enough to know of specific examples of coded protocols in chrodates, but iinm some birdsong is very rigidly specified, as are some monkey calls.

[–]dbe -2 points-1 points ago

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I'm a little curious why you're calling it "language". Is it really language if they have 10 or 20 "words"? Do they even have that many?

Like, a pack of dogs will have some aural communication, but they're not words. A bird's song is not a word or series of words.

[–]millionsofcatsLinguistics | Historical Phonology | Speech Perception 5 points6 points ago

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Pygnisfive uses "languages" in quotes, probably because they wanted to get straight to answering the question without getting into the quagmire that is fighting over the definition of language and whether non-human animals have it. (The vast majority of linguists would say that no, non-human animals do not have language as linguists define it.)

[–]psygnisfive 1 point2 points ago

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This is why I used scare quotes..

[–]Kaghuros -3 points-2 points ago

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Think of it this way: Chinese is a Human language with a highly contextual understanding. The tone and inflection of the spoken sounds drastically change their meaning. If bird songs and cetacean calls have a similar tonal and inflectional quality, perhaps their range of expression is equally complex.

[–]millionsofcatsLinguistics | Historical Phonology | Speech Perception 8 points9 points ago

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This comment betrays an ignorance of how Chinese is structurally very similar to other human languages, and structurally very different from animal languages (as all natural human languages are). Tonal languages are no more like birdsong than non-tonal languages. In fact all spoken human languages make use of tone; Chinese is only called "tonal" where English isn't because in Chinese tone is lexically contrastive. Chinese people do not communicate like birds do.

Pygnisfive used "languages" in quotes, by the way - I highly doubt that they believe animals have language in the same sense that humans do, because in the past they've demonstrated knowledge of the field of linguistics.

[–]avalliant 0 points1 point ago

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I don't think he was intending offense to the Chinese language. I think he meant to juxtapose how different English and Chinese are, to compare it how similar two different bird songs may be to two individual species birds. If I'm not making sense and totally not grasping the argument here feel free to ignore me, long day.

[–]millionsofcatsLinguistics | Historical Phonology | Speech Perception 0 points1 point ago

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I am having a hard time seeing that meaning anywhere in Kaghuros's comment.

To elaborate for anyone else reading: Kaghuros connects the intonation of a Chinese utterance to its "highly contextual understanding" and then goes on to speculate that bird and cetacean communications might have a "similar" inflectional quality, meaning that it's possible they're as complex as human sounds. It's hard to tease apart everything that's wrong with this, because it's a terrible tangle of misconceptions, but

(a) There is no evidence, as far as I know, that Chinese is a more "highly contextual language" than any other language;

(b) Even if it were, Chinese tones would have nothing to do with it, because they just add an additional dimension with which to distinguish words from each other by how they sound - similar to the way English uses contrastive stress;

(c) Other languages - like English - use tone, and in fact use it in a more "context dependent" way than Chinese;

(d) Context dependence isn't a good explanation for why we haven't discovered that birds and cetaceans have equally complex communications as humans despite the length of time we have looked;

(e) There is no way that Chinese has a similar "tonal and inflectional quality" to bird and cetacean communication, unless you define such a thing in such broad terms as to make it meaningless.

I didn't take "offense" towards the Chinese language, except in a very general sense: People love to exotify Chinese and have all sorts of strange theories about it. Its hold on the Western imagination in particular is hard to explain outside of some weird othering, which makes it a little more tiresome than it otherwise might be.

[–]redkey42 38 points39 points ago

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Parrots learn their names from their parents

"Dolphins and humans are, so far, the only other members of this select club of animals who use names for individuals. Scientists think this ability is related to the intensely social lives of all three of these creatures. In the case of parrots, whose flocks often split up and join with other groups, having one’s own name and being able to imitate the names of other birds could be a helpful tool when forming new flocks."

[–]paintedLas 15 points16 points ago

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This is not true at all. Ravens have been documented in many studies to have unique names and calls for individuals. Dolphins and humans have been studied more, so we are better able to define a "name" from any other sound/word. Other species may not have had enough study into the complete language, so we say "Nope, they don't have names for things." Its egocentric of us to jump to this conclusion.

[–]Kaghuros 8 points9 points ago

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The studies cited may predate deeper research on ravens and other corvids. Bird science has been quite focused on them in the last two decades in the northwest, but was not nearly so much before.

[–]relevant-TED 2 points3 points ago

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[–]redkey42 0 points1 point ago

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WONDERFUL clip. Thanks for sharing!!

[–]TheSilverFalcon 4 points5 points ago

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Crows have dialects, and are pretty interesting communicators as well. Here is an article from Cracked and a more scientific JSTOR study to back it up.

[–]yoyosarecoolCognitive Neuroscience|Psycholinguistics 26 points27 points ago

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Psycholinguist here. I just want to emphasize that animals do not have language in the same sense that humans do. Animals can have complex communication systems, and just like there is variation within a species, there is variation in the communicative system they use as well.

What I would be interested in knowing is whether species that have variation in their communication systems (e.g. whales) can understand each each other (i.e. are they mutually intelligible?). Or is it the case that animals familiar with a particular variation of their communication system can only understand their own particular variation?

[–]gfpumpkinsMicrobiology|Microbial Symbiosis 15 points16 points ago

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What makes a complex communication system a language versus not a language? Taken whats discussed in this thread about dolphins and humpback whales, how are their communication styles not language?

[–]yoyosarecoolCognitive Neuroscience|Psycholinguistics 9 points10 points ago

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In 1963, this guy Hockett identified several things that are unique to language that he calls Design Features. Of course, it's been debated since then whether the "uniquely human" features are truly unique to humans. However, language science as a whole seems to be of the consensus that language as it pertains to humans is distinct from the complex communication systems of animals.

[–]Kasseev 4 points5 points ago

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His design features seem as if he is just letting his confirmation bias about human superiority get away from him. I mean why is lying an integral part of having a language? Why would it be necessary to discuss things that do not exist to be speaking a language? Deceit is fairly common outside of language in the animal kingdom so again, I don't see why we regard it as a disqualifying factor for real language.

[–]yoyosarecoolCognitive Neuroscience|Psycholinguistics 4 points5 points ago

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His design features seem as if he is just letting his confirmation bias about human superiority get away from him.

That is definitely a possibility, but you can't really know what Hockett's intentions were when proposing these features as essential to human language.

I mean why is lying an integral part of having a language? Why would it be necessary to discuss things that do not exist to be speaking a language? Deceit is fairly common outside of language in the animal kingdom so again, I don't see why we regard it as a disqualifying factor for real language.

I don't think lying is necessarily integral to having a language, this just happens to be one of the commonalities Hockett was able to identify. Yes, deceit exists in the animal kingdom, but it isn't one factor that instantly qualifies or disqualifies something from being a language. These features are more descriptive than prescriptive in terms of defining language.

The truth is that there is a gradient of complexity in animal communication systems, and systems on the complex end probably have much in common with human language. Pinker and Jackendoff (2005) have argued that human language isn't really as special as some of these early linguists made it out to be, that human language is a specially adapted form of the communication systems that animals employ.

As a psychologist I tend to be of the opinion that what is and isn't language is more accurately described as a gradient than as a threshold, much like everything else in human behavior.

Citations: Pinker, S., & Jackendoff, R. (2005). The faculty of language: what’s special about it? Cognition, 95(2), 201-36.

[–]Kaghuros 0 points1 point ago

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I think his argument may be clumsy and biased, but he does get at an interesting point. Many animals can communicate facts aurally or behaviorally, like where food is or if a predator is near. Not all animals can convey false information convincingly, or at least we're not yet sure they do. I suspect there is a cognition gap among species about conveying and differentiating false information, and the capacity to convey falsehood would at least signify a conscious use/abuse of language and a definite sense of self.

[–]jaimelecocain 2 points3 points ago

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http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~swinters/371/designfeatures.html

There are 15 language design features that were set forth by Charles Hockett in 1966 gathered from a comparison of different animal systems. All human languages share these features. Animal communication systems, however, are found to lack one or more of these features.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

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The Southern Resident Killer Whales (off the San Juan Islands, Washington State) are made up of three main pods - J, K, and L pods. I know one of the ways whale researchers, enthusiasts, and watchers can identify who (as in what pod) is swimming through at a particular moment is their dialect.

The Orca Network on Facebook has a dedicated group of followers who will update on the wall when they hear anything on the hydrophones (check out orcasound.net to access those hydrophones). They'll post something along the lines of "Sounds like the K's are passing through" - etc. Pretty neat, considering they're just analyzing what they're hearing on the hydrophones to identify what pod is swimming by at that particular moment.

As far as if their languages are learned or not, check out The Center for Whale Research, or just email them directly at info@whaleresearch.com (anytime I've had questions they've responded quickly). Bunch of hard working, dedicated people over there. They'll know best how to answer this question. You could also contact Dr. Ingrid N. Visser of the Orca Research Trust (New Zealand).

Recently, a bid to free a captured whale named Morgan went poorly. I'm pretty sure that professionals were able to locate Morgan's family pod by comparing dialects. They were hoping that would help with the release effort, knowing what pod she belonged in...but alas, she's now housed at a marine park in the Canary Islands.

One more link to an awesome video aired by PBS about the killer whale - covering a bunch of topics from language and culture to diet and captivity.

[–]RockyMcNuts 1 point2 points ago

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This study seems to suggest that the dolphin 'word' for an object mimics its echolocation signature. In that sense those words would be pretty universal.

http://wakeup-world.com//2011/11/28/the-discovery-of-dolphin-language/

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points ago*

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from the /r/askscience guidelines:

sidebar: "Please keep discussion scientific (i.e. based on repeatable analysis published in a peer reviewed journal)"

expanded guidelines: "You don't need to be a panelist or a scientist to answer. You should have a source."

I'm not blaming the mods. There are too many poor quality answers for the mods to have a chance of removing them. I would just like to encourage people who actually value the word "science" in the title of this subreddit to downvote posts that do not contain scientific sources.

I can understand if someone posts a basic high school physics problem, you probably don't need to reference Principia in the answer, but animal language is an ongoing controversy in lingusitics and needs to be treated carefully. This thread is incredibly lazy about defining the term 'language', and nobody has mentioned the fact that most theoretical linguists and many biologists do not believe that animals possess any form of language worthy of the name.

This keeps coming up, and everyone seems to love the idea that animals have language just like us, so skepticism goes out the window. The closest we've had to a source so far is "my dad once read a paper". Other upvoted contenders include "i did also read a study, I wish i could remember which", "Discover Magazine", BBC news, "Global Animal Magazine" ("your daily news, from pets to wildlife"), and the classic "Unfortunately no source because I'm lazy; I learned this in my dolphin psych class".

Why animals don't have language, Columbia University

The system of sound distinctions found in human languages is both specific to language and unique to humans

"The capacity to generate a limitless range of meaningful expressions from a finite set of elements differentiates human language from other animal communication systems ... human language entails more sophisticated grammars, incorporating hierarchical structure. Monkeys tested with the same methods, syllables, and sequence lengths were unable to master a grammar at this higher, “phrase structure grammar level" " Science, 2003

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[–]dusdus 14 points15 points ago

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PhD student in Linguistics here, who just taught on this very topic to an intro class.

No other animal has language -- humans seem to be fine tuned to perceive certain categories of sounds, and are adept at picking up on human language sounds in a bunch of noise. Additionally, it's been argued (pretty convincingly) that human language alone has the recursive combinatorics needed in order to subserve natural language syntax and a syntax/semantics mapping.

tl;dr -- humans have language because only humans can do sentences and can categorize sounds the right way

That being said, there are other communication systems that have "cultural transmission" -- that is, the ability to learn a communication system from surrounding animals through interaction, and the ability to pass it down through the same means. A lot of animals know their communication system innately (a cat doesn't have to learn to meow), but some animals do have "dialects" -- cows, some songbirds, etc. That is, there are some parameters of the communication systems that are specified by the animal's environment. As far as I know, though, there hasn't been any systematic study to show that the "dialects" are SO different that an Australian cow couldn't understand an American cow, for instance. I'd sincerely doubt it, but I'm not an animal researcher.

[–]NovusHomoSapiens 9 points10 points ago*

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Molecular biology student here. Many studies over decades have suggested that dolphins and whales are capable of abstract thinking and self recognition and do possess culture and language. Their long and seemingly symphonic communicative sounds are not just mere sounds; studies revealed they have different notes for different words. That being said, as far as locality applies then yes they do have dialects.

I'll be back with a source from the Science magazine.

Edit: here as promised is the article from the Science Mag. Unless you have a subscription you won't be able to read its full version though.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6029/526.summary?sid=2aa61f01-5363-4238-b6e9-6907a62031b7

[–]dusdus 2 points3 points ago

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Right, the thing that linguists have argued that is unique to human language is the computational principle of recursion (the ability to embed things within another). Abstract thought is not the same thing as language (most mammals have abstract thought, almost assuredly), and neither is knowing words (being able to map sounds and things in the world is just simple association) or culture. Those have been replicated in tons of animals.

[–]NovusHomoSapiens 4 points5 points ago*

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The problem with your argument is that you keep assuring no animal has such ability but the truth is we don't know that for sure about dolphins and whales. First they are not simply any animals. They are obviously much more intelligent, even surpass our closest relatives by the fact that their brains are more developed. Second we have not yet been able to interpret what their chirps and clicks refer to specifically, let alone declaring they don't have such ability. This problem is solely due to our limited knowledge. A tons of animals says nothing about the capability of cetaceans as humans are still intensively studying about these creatures.

[–]dusdus 5 points6 points ago

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Right, but the way science is done is not by saying "we don't know this because it hasn't been proven to be false", but "we don't think that X because nobody has proved it yet". The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. And there have been plenty of animal researchers trying to argue that animals learn language, but no one has shown an animal combining sounds (or other signals) in a systematic way to create new meanings.

[–]greenbird23 3 points4 points ago

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Irene Pepperberg has made ground breaking progress in proving that Parrots are able to form new meanings and descriptions by combining sounds.

Alex understood the turn-taking of communication and often the syntax used in language.[10] He called an apple a "banerry", which Pepperberg thought to be a combination of "banana" and "cherry", two fruits he was more familiar with.[14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Fpad20Zbk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Pepperberg

[–]dusdus 2 points3 points ago

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Yeah, we're very familiar with Alex in Linguistics. Honestly, I think Alex is quite interesting and it's a pity that he passed away and we couldn't probe his intelligence anymore. Honestly he might have been able to master something like conjunctive logic -- he could calculate the intersection between "red" and "block" to pick out the red blocks, for instance. Some have argued that this is precisely the mechanism that underlies semantic ability in humans (but not syntactic ability).

But I sincerely doubt that Alex would ever be able to tell that "the gliebest cats won" can mean "the cats that have property 'glieb' to the highest degree", but "gliebest cats won" has to be a relation between the number of cats that won and the number of cats that didn't win, but never can be a comparison between the number of cats that won and the number of things that won that weren't cats (articles encode conservative relations), which is something that 2 year olds and younger have mastered and is part of the architecture of the linguistic system (cf. Pietroski, Lidz, Wellwood's work). Likewise, we know that you can't turn "You met somebody and John" to "Who did you meet and John?", yet again this is something that kids seem to know as young as we test them... These are the kinds of findings that I mean when I say humans have a specific kind of knowledge subserving their linguistic ability that no other animals have demonstrated. Being able to associate "ban-" with banananess and "-erry" with cherriness and conceiving that apples could have both properties does not really address the claimed qualitative difference between humans' linguistic abilities and animals' communication systems.

[–]Prof_G 0 points1 point ago

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To be fair many humans wouldn't be able to tell you what "the glibiest cat won" can me either.

[–]dusdus 1 point2 points ago

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Well, it's a made up word. The point is that adults and children alike will only consider a very particular interpretation which is consistent with what we've found investigating the languages of the world. We're not asking the adults to explicitly and overtly define the made up word, we're seeing what interpretations they ever even consider, which ends up being very subtle and precise across people and languages, and coincide with what children know.

[–]svejkist 3 points4 points ago

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Right, but the way science is done is not by saying "we don't know this because it hasn't been proven to be false", but "we don't think that X because nobody has proved it yet". The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim.

Huh. I was always taught that science says "we think this and nobody has proven it false yet." There is no burden of proof in science, because science works by disproof, not proof. You could say there is a burden of failed disproof. Evidence consistent with a hypothesis is very different than proof.

[–]CarolusMagnus 2 points3 points ago

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No, that isn't true either. An assertion that can't be disproven isn't supported by science. A hypothesis that generates testable predictions is, because you can then run an experiment to figure out whether it's supported by evidence.

So you can't make a scientific statement about dolphin language recursivity until you can either understand it or figure out how to test this without understanding a language.

[–]svejkist 1 point2 points ago

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I believe that is what I was saying.

[–]CarolusMagnus 0 points1 point ago

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Yes, I just wanted to make clear that lack of "provability" doesn't mean that anything not disproven is credible - there has to be positive evidence for a model as well as lack of counter-evidence.

[–]svejkist 0 points1 point ago

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Yes, I was kinda just having fun with words there.

[–]umilmi81 0 points1 point ago

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It's painfully obvious from the Koko documentary that the scientists are working towards a desired outcome. They put so much work into conditioning this Gorilla into "using" sign language but it's clear that she's just doing conditioned responses to get a reward.

[–]dusdus 6 points7 points ago

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This is the conclusion that the scientific community has come to generally. It IS interesting in that it shows gorillas can learn to express themselves using a code, that they can learn associations between signs and meaning, and that they can interact with humans using that code. But it is NOT showing that they can learn language, since they do not have a discrete combinatoric communication system with the same properties as human language.

[–]NovusHomoSapiens -1 points0 points ago

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I agree with you on that hypotheses need extensive evidence to support themselves. However, please don't group all life forms other than ourselves into one general group "animal" like that. There are different level of neural as well as cognitive capability in different vertebrates, reptiles, birds, mammals although so far more mammalians are known to be better developed than other groups of animal. That is why we still have to study these cetaceans. Therefore, when we refer to dolphins and whales specifically, your argument is very arbitrary.

[–]dusdus 2 points3 points ago

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By that logic it's also arbitrary to say that it isn't fair to claim that no other animal in the world besides elephants have elephant trunks. When you see a very clear species-specific adaptation, do you really need to investigate every other animal before saying "this is unique to this animal"?

There are plenty of arguments and pieces of evidence that human language is to a non-trivial extent a biological innovation in the human species, and not the product of learning from our environments or general learning mechanisms. I mean, the No Free Lunch theorem ensures that there can't be a general learning algorithm, after all.

There is a debate in linguistics and cognitive science about whether the language faculty in humans evolved sui generis -- that humans have language because we evolved a specific language capacity -- or whether we evolved a specific kind of intelligence and set of learning biases that subserve language and other human-specific cognitive abilities. But, nobody has claimed successfully that language is something any other animal could learn. Just like no other animal could "learn" to have the exact same system of echolocation that a bat as, or that a non-elephant could "learn" to have a trunk. I mean, it's almost trivially true by definition, isn't it?

[–]GeeBee72 2 points3 points ago

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I'm interested in understanding where the current boundaries are drawn for what is a language versus what is cultural transmission. While you mention a cat's meow, it's understood that cat's don't generally vocalize in the wild as a major means of communication, except to scare predators or to call to offspring; has any study been done to determine if the chirrups that a mother and cub use to locate each other differs from cat to cat, or from family to family?

I'm also curious about how non-verbal communication plays into the definition of language. Would a scientist, given no previous exposure to humans, assign the tag of "language capable" to practitioners of american sign language? I want to draw a line between what we see as obvious language in humans and what we see as just behavior in other animals; for example, cats, when scared will turn sideways and arch their back and puff their tail; is this not a form of communication which is consistent and understandable?

Also, are we, in all honesty, really smart enough to understand a true language in the context of another species which has a completely different world-view than our own view? Could it be that Dogs really do have something to say, but what it means is incomprehensible to us?

[–]dusdus 5 points6 points ago

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Language IS culturally transmitted -- French children don't grow up automatically speaking French, they learn it from their environments (which is why immigrants can learn to speak the language of their new peers)

A lot of the debate has to do with defining precisely what humans do when they communicate. There is the traditional definition which are Hockett's design features of language (you can see the list a few threads up), but most linguists would stress that the interesting part of language is the ability to combine signals into new signals with new meanings. In other words, discreteness and some combinatoric system. This is totally consistent with sign languages. The other thing that seems to suggest human language is unique to humans is that we're disposed to very particular sounds, to the point of picking them out in a noisy environment (although chinchillas have showed similar sensitivities). This does not rule out signed languages -- in fact, signed languages have the same kind of complex "sound" systems, except instead of being encoded in using your voicebox and mouth shape they're defined in terms of hand shape, position and movement.

Plenty of animals have other communication systems -- nobody wants to argue against that. Communication presupposes having a meaning to

[–]Bongeh 5 points6 points ago

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Cows in England, it has been suggested, 'Moo' in different dialects/accents. : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5277090.stm

My personal view on this is that animals who rely on primal instinc don't necessarily communicate in languages (although some may), in as much as they communicate with body language, which tends to be universal.

Slightly off topic: I watched a BBC program about dolphin pods having cultural intelligence, there's lots of evidence for it in other animals too, where by the mother will teach the children how to hunt etc : http://www.globalanimal.org/2011/09/30/tail-walking-wild-dolphins-learn-to-river-dance/23568/

[–]Ravn000 1 point2 points ago*

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Body language is not universal. Most animals communicate very differently with their bodies. It's only the most basic of things that are universal.

EDIT: If you meant [universal within a species] I'll agree. Some animals show difference though. Particularly between the domesticated and the wild.

I suspect this is the case with Homo Sapien. I'm merely speculating for I have never met a wild man, completely lacking in cultural upbringing and some form of communication with others, but I suspect that a man like that would act very brutish, and would only be able to convey the most basic of desires. Civilized humans have learned to act in sometimes very unnatural ways, so I think we'd have a hard time communicating anything more than anger to a wild man. Eventually he would learn our language though.

[–]Kaghuros 1 point2 points ago

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Universal within a species is what I suspect he means.

[–]Ravn000 0 points1 point ago

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Edited my post. You may be correct.

[–]rspeer 0 points1 point ago

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Debunking of that terrible BBC article.

No scientists were involved in the making of that article. Okay, at one point someone interviewed a linguist, but they wrote basically the opposite of what he said.

[–]3615_reddit 2 points3 points ago

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This article mentions a shape-related language for dolphins, I think it's relevant: http://wakeup-world.com/2011/11/28/the-discovery-of-dolphin-language/

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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It's the most relevant information in the thread.

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[–]jippe 10 points11 points ago

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Orcas have different dialects. Also they have different forms of hunting which they teach individually. So their knowledge and language depends on the family background.

[–]Apollo258 10 points11 points ago

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Here is a study to support this statement from a team at the University of Columba (published in 'Marine Mammal', a research consortium). I read about this as a kid. And if you were wondering, orcas (killer whales) are actually dolphins - I don't personally know if it applies to smaller species. If you read the study (and I'll be honest, I'm at work so I only skimmed it) it does break down the similarities and differences - so I don't know if it's as different as say, English and Chinese.

http://www.marinemammal.org/pdfs/Deecke98.pdf

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[–]stievstigma 10 points11 points ago

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Interesting side note on dolphin culture are the dolphins off the coast of Cape Fear, which have a hunting behavior totally unique to that area. They swirl around a school of fish, creating a disorienting vortex, then, as a group, drive them up onto the shore and actually eat them on the beach before shimmying back into the water.

[–]WhitePostIt 1 point2 points ago

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You should look into orca cultures - when one looks at a certain group by itself, the culture is not evident. Compare two different groups, such as the Transients and Residents, the differences are much more clear. From genetic analysis, scientists believe the Transients and Residents have not significantly intermingled in about 10,000 years. The Residents and Transients also have clear language differences - different clicks, whistle and singing patterns.

There are 7 classified variation of orcas, and I'm willing to bet each one exhibits a different culture, if not more than one. Not much is known about the other orca groups outside of Transients and Residents. Part of the reason is location (Residents and Transients are conveniently located in US waters and near land) while other groups, such as the Offshores, live much farther from the coasts and are far more migratory, making them difficult to study.

[–]zxh 1 point2 points ago

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So the question is whether animal "languages" are mostly their instincts, or a learned behavior?

Suppose a whale is captured in an infant stage, isolated and then later put back together with other isolated whales, will they spontaneously communicate with each other without any problem?

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[–]sealpoacher 1 point2 points ago

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I read something about a current study about different kinds of elephants communicating in different sounds. I read that more elephants from Asia make more of a chirping kind of noise than a loud and long blow. If somebody that knows the article could post it, that would be spectacular.

[–]hereshowitis 1 point2 points ago

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There is some evidence that cows have regional accents too.

[–]Dandamanten 1 point2 points ago

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Building off of this- if you were to put two dolphins of different "dialects" in one tank, would they adapt and learn to communicate?

[–]paintedLas 1 point2 points ago

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It would be reasonable that could have different dialect. Many song birds of the same species have regional dialects. Chickadees in the Pacific Northwest have been isolated from other regions by the Cascade mountain range. So these birds have some songs and notes that are similar to other chickadees. Other songs are unique to the region. This is one example of many from various species. Dolphins if isolated by physical habitat barriers or by habitat preference could develop regional dialects. Think of it as dolphins with "accents". Some accents or languages are much different from your own and difficult to understand. While others can resemble your own language and you may be able to still get the gist of what is said. Dolphins may be able to communicate with a dolphin from one region, but may have difficulty with one from another region.

[–]NakedCave 1 point2 points ago

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Orcinus orca aka orcas or Killer Whales do have this. Each group has distinct repertoires of call-types. Parapatric populations (called Northern and Southern Residents) in the inland waters of Washington State and British Columbia have different repertoires call types. Within those populations are different numbers of pods. In the Southern Residents (pods J, K and L) each pod sounds slightly different. You could say that they have different accents. Each pod is broken up into matrilines (a female and her offspring, males never disperse) and I seem to remember (but can't find, so I could be misremembering) a paper by John KB Ford that showed there were differences even between matrilines.

Here's one source

[–]duckshoe2 1 point2 points ago

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To the species discussed in comments so far, add goats. UK researchers have done work showing that goats have dialects, which appear to be social (rather than genetic) in origin.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Goats+develop+accents+scientists/6186403/story.html

[–]WhitePostIt 1 point2 points ago*

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I know that orcas (the largest of the dolphin family) not only have different languages (different click, whistle and singing patterns), but culture as well. The main groups studied are the Resident, Transients, and Offshore. Not much is known about the Offshores, but the Transients and Residents have been extensively studied.

Differences include food, hunting methods/strategies, communication methods/patterns, behavioral rules, hierarchy, pod sizes, territory (though it can overlap at times), even general behavior (Transients are more aggressive than the Residents). Transients are also a little smaller and slimmer, allowing for greater speed, and have slightly different coloring. Effectively - culture, and ethnicity/race.

In all though, I believe there are 7 different known subspecies of orca. Just from the study between the Residents and Transients (and what little is known of the Offshores) you can hypothesize there are as many as 7, or more, different orca cultures. Studying them all is a challenge however. One of the main reasons the Resident and Transients have been studied so well is convenience of location - they're off the northern Cali coast up to Alaska. Residents are also the most popular whale-watching orcas.

In general, dolphins are extremely intelligent, and it would not surprise me if different groups even within a species had separate languages, or even knew more than one dolphin language. Captured dolphins also exhibit more of the behaviors seen in humans put into confined spaces and isolation than apes do. I hope one day people will stop seeing them as silly performers and more like kin, deserving of respect and dignity.

[–]chocolateshark 0 points1 point ago

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I have heard about this for other species. For example, Jane Goodall said that different groups of chimpanzees use a variety of sounds to mean different things: if you observed a sequence of sounds to mean something in a group, then imitated those noises to another completely separate group of chimps, they might not understand the meaning. So certain animals do have cultural "idioms" and entire parts of their language which are unique to a particular group.

[–]burn1nat0r 0 points1 point ago

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I just read about a study that goats are one of the few animals that can have accents. They are on the short list of animals that can, including dolphins.

List of animals that have accents: "some birds, whales, dolphins, bats, elephants, and the most extreme example, us."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21481-young-goats-can-develop-distinct-accents.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/16/goat-accents-picked-up-by-some-young-animals_n_1281338.html

[–]growamustache 0 points1 point ago

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Maybe sort of an addition to this question, but:

Is the language taught, or instinctive?

If we raised a baby dolphin (or other intelligent aquatic mammal) without the presence of others of its species, would it be able to communicate with them?

[–]sonofthunder 0 points1 point ago

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I just heard a brief scientific american podcast on whether goats have different dialects. This is by no means comprehensive, but it does have audio of goat bleats that were raised differently. It would be nice if their website cited sources however.

Have a listen if you are interested. It's only a minute long:

Upbleat Finding: Kids Start to Sound Alike over Time

Scientific American 60 second Science

[–]fireindeedhotMolecular Biology|Molecular Neuroscience 0 points1 point ago

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I know nothing about dolphin dialects, but I do study rat vocalizations. Rats consistently communicate at ultrasonic ranges around 22khz and 53khz. I guess it would be analogous to a scream or a laugh, which is understandable no matter what person is doing it.

[–]SuperRezzy 0 points1 point ago

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I've read that crows have varying dialects and have even been known to pull pranks on one another. They have displayed complex problem solving skills and long-term memory in the form of human facial recognition.

[–]heavenmonkey 0 points1 point ago

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My undergraduate psych professors were primarily dolphin and manatee researchers, so I have a lot of hearsay, but have done a lot of reading about them, too.

To my knowledge, psychologists primarily have been focusing on capturing the calls of wild dolphins and running frequency analyses to characterize the various noises they hear. There are clicks and click trains, whistles, crazy broad frequency burps, and dolphins seem to have some special skull features that can create a loud crack. All I've really seen major evidence for is that there are characteristic whistles that each individual tends to produce, and many believe these are names or identifiers, but really this is far from certain. These 'signature' whistles are heard when dolphins approach other dolphins, perhaps as a 'Hello' or 'It's me,' but they are also heard in a wide variety of other contexts.

In my opinion, the sounds they make are very diverse and trying to associate these sounds with context, including social contexts, is a very daunting task. I personally believe the complexity of the dolphin acoustics and auditory system is wildly understated, and there are nuances of the calls that time-frequency analyses won't pick up.

As for your question, I have heard that indeed there are 'dialects' across world populations, in so far that the stereotypical calls we hear under certain circumstances may have varying features across locations. But these calls also vary across context, pods, and individuals, so your question isn't super well posed. If you were to ask if dolphins would not be able to recognize any other dolphin calls, perhaps from dolphins a world over, I would likely disagree with that. However, if calls were taken out of context from a different pod halfway across the world, I doubt another dolphin would derive much meaning from them. The question is what were the factors influencing where the meaning of their calls come from? Is it some sort of cultural factor, or is it idiosyncratic to discrete social milieu?

In essence, there is still much debate about the presence of what we think of language in dolphins. We would need to answer that question first to answer your question as you intended to ask it. Though, I'm most likely ignorant of any possible research answering your questions directly, and this is all my intuition gleaned from the brief exposure I had during undergrad.

[–]drhone15 0 points1 point ago

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There have been studies that show Goats develop different accents when grown separately

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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Dialect is not the same as an accent. Dialect implies variations in syntactic, semantic or morphological features as well as phonological or phonetic ones (what changes the pronunciation of sounds). Unless we could determine whether an animal language contained morphological, syntactic or semantic features (I might even add pragmatic to the list), we could not determine whether or not that language could produce dialects.

[–]bobfell 0 points1 point ago

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Killer whales (Orcinus orca) of the US west coast are known to have different dialects. They are basically black and white mottled, oversized dolphins (all belong to the Delphinidae superfamily). There are two distinct types that frequent the Vancouver, "the residents" there year round and the "transients" that migrate up and down the coast. These two different groups are known to have different "languages", feeding habits and do not seem to interbreed though they are basically genetically identical.

[–]stroganawfulEvolutionary Neurolinguistics 0 points1 point ago

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Numerous studies have been conducted studying the variations in communication patterns between different species of marmots. These have revealed specific differences in the referential power and exactitude of communication systems between species. Conspecifics understand warning calls and other vocalizations, but they are prone to misinterpret the similar-but-different vocalizations of a different species of marmot. Source.

[–]bowlfrog 0 points1 point ago

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can all animals communicate with others of their species?

[–]nathiaas 0 points1 point ago

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Orangutans have dialects.

[–]shadowwork 0 points1 point ago

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I thought orangutans only exist in the wild on one island, Sumatra? Does each tribe have a different dialect?

[–]nathiaas 1 point2 points ago

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[–]TurtleCatJr 0 points1 point ago*

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I saw a Documentary on Monkeys from asia that were moved to a camp here in the US(wanna say texas). The monkeys developed uniques sounds to warn for predators that are not found in their motherland.

When the monkeys were reunited with the monkeys from the motherland, they didnt understand the threat from the sounds they made.

I cant remember where of when i saw this, If someone could help me out. Point being that if monkeys can develop different dialects then im sure dolphins can, Dolphins are considered the smartest animal.

[–]WalmartSuperstar 0 points1 point ago

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Cows have different accents

[–]1nostalgiccat024 0 points1 point ago

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Science Dad AMA

[–]skybluskyblue 0 points1 point ago

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"This latest study, published in Behavior Genetics suggests that sperm whale groups are made up of individuals that use the same dialect, rather than those that come from a similar area of the Pacific." http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-evidence-sperm-whale-culture.html And: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/20/science-sperm-whale-dialects-gero.html

[–]HeresABookForYou 0 points1 point ago

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[–]beetrootdip 0 points1 point ago

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Dolphins don't use language.

I could go to Japan, or to the USA, to Africa or anywhere else and make a loud, guttural below, and all would understand that I wish to communicate anger, or to threaten.

I could whimper, and all would understand that it was a submissive, meek action.

[–][deleted] ago

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[–]econleech 5 points6 points ago

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What's the proper term for it if not language?

[–]jurble -2 points-1 points ago

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vocalizations

[–]econleech 4 points5 points ago

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Vocalization doesn't necessary mean communication, does it?

[–]jurble 2 points3 points ago

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Well, I suppose bats and dolphins vocalize for the sake of echolocation. But other than that, all vocalizations are to convey some sort of information.

[–]jessherr 2 points3 points ago

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So then vocalization may contain information used for communication? Is language then a complex system of vocalizations with grammar?

[–]jurble 1 point2 points ago

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Language needn't be vocalization. Language only needs meaningful words (semantics) and syntax (grammar). Sign language is a language, ergo.

[–]nastyastyVirology|Cell Biology 1 point2 points ago

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Ergo, what?

[–]jurble 0 points1 point ago

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Ergo, sign language is a language (it possesses semantics and syntax.) Word order is irrelevant in Latin, so why must I put a Latin word in the beginning of an English sentence? Bah! I ought to be able to put it where-ever I wish!

[–]nastyastyVirology|Cell Biology 0 points1 point ago

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That is actually a decent response, well played. However, your overall sentence is in English, and you are borrowing a Latin word, so I would say you should follow the English rules of grammar.

Be honest, though, you really meant "QED".

[–]jessherr 0 points1 point ago

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So semantics & grammar. What about chimps like Washoe and to some extent Kanzi? Did Washoe not use syntax when signing? I've heard some argue that language has to do with information sharing and social learning and chimps are not capable of it. Thoughts?

[–]jurble 1 point2 points ago

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http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/jpdm1/how_legitimate_is_gorilla_sign_language_like_koko/c2e6ujk

That's actually the comment that originally got me to go on a wiki&google-hunt of animal language some months ago. Ever since then, I've been in the camp he describes:

The other issue is generally taken by hard-core linguists - that is, the symbols that these animals are generating aren't language. That is, there is no combining of the signs into novel phrases.

[–]jessherr 0 points1 point ago

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Honestly, I think one of my biggest problems is that I'm an animal lover and so I want to give chimps more credit. Of course no other animal has the capacity to communicate 'language' the way humans do, I can agree with that. However, I feel like animal communication is not defined or categorized, and that there is more to it than just vocalizations. I just think they should get more credit. Perhaps naiive and subject, yeah sure maybe.

[–]whatwouldahippodo 1 point2 points ago

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If I start whistling that is a vocalization, but what information does that communicate?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points ago

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That you exist and also your location, along with how good a whistler you are. Including memory, an observer might also be able to hear that you are a different whistler than other whistlers they've heard, for example.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points ago

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Some African tribes use a series of clicks and whistles as a part of their language. They convey meaning based on pitch and duration. To an English speaker it is just a jumble of noises.

You could also whistle a recognisable tune - which contains information.

You could also 'wolf-whistle' at an attractive woman in the street or 'dog-whistle' to call a dog or other animal. The inflection and tone of those whistles have meaning, if the tones are whistled in a different order, the whistle loses or changes its meaning. This would imply a form of grammar. Since a sentence loses its meaning if words are changed or placed out of order.

I have no idea about animal noises, but these are some examples of how human 'vocalisations' can have meaning through structure, pitch & duration, and could therefore be considered a type of grammar.

[–]fbpdev 2 points3 points ago

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see also the whistling language of La Gomera in the Canary Islands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJleFNqQ32M

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

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Up votes for unleashing the awesome!

[–]fbpdev 0 points1 point ago

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another good one about la gomera : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqdAnGDMU2k

and you can even learn the language online for free here: http://www.busuu.com/silbo

[–]Odincore 17 points18 points ago

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Why is this the top comment in AskScience? He is incorrect. There is evidence that birds and other animals can have a kind of grammar. For instance: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20615-first-evidence-that-birds-tweet-using-grammar.html

[–]Th3-Fuzz 5 points6 points ago

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There is evidence that birds and other animals can have a kind of grammar

That is quoted straight from you.

They may not have verbs, nouns or past participles, but birds challenge the notion that humans alone have evolved grammatical rules.

Everything you said yourself and the article said suggests that those birds may have a kind of grammar.

I'm not a scientist but I'm pretty sure that means it hasn't been proven that the birds have grammar, just that there is some evidence that suggests that they might have it. Which wouldn't make jurble incorrect.

[–]jurble 3 points4 points ago*

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An article from June, 2011, from a researcher who claims that:

that only his finches have been shown to have a form of grammar in their utterances.

So, maybe finches and humans have grammar. I'm still skeptical whether it's grammar though. It says they used several jumbled songs and only one struck the birds as off. That implies to me that the songs are inherently meaningless - they aren't composed of lexemes with semantic value. At the same time, are we certain that it's syntax that bothered these birds? Perhaps the remixed recording was cut in some manner that made it aesthetically unpleasing.

If it is pure syntax that bothers these birds, that's interesting. The other jumbled songs indicate the lack of semantic value in the songs themselves. What's the purpose of syntax if it isn't used to relate symbols? I don't see why they would develop syntax independent of semantics.

But, at its core, grammar is still just syntax e.g.: "The bacon greens well." is a grammatically correct sentence that is semantically meaningless. So if the birds do possess syntax, they do possess grammar. Still isn't language though. Need syntax and semantics.

[–]chcrouse 0 points1 point ago

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Dolphins are psychic. All other sounds they make are some form of giggling.

[–]trustedsource 0 points1 point ago

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Elephants, dolphins, whales, and most recently goats have all been discovered to have regional accents.