Language and Culture Amongst Other Animals
There has been strong resistance from the scientific community to the use of the terms "language" and "culture" to describe animal communication and learned behavior. But this resistance seems to me to be essentially irrational and unscientific in nature.
When a species has at least 50 separate vocalizations and gestures known to human observers (*) in use (as is the case for some chimpanzee bands), this is clearly "language." It may not be syntactical language (it may for instance be limited to "noun-verb" at most in terms of its parts of speech, and may be forced to use noun combinations instead of what we would think of as "adjectives"), but it is still language.
And when there is a whole complex pattern of behavior, which must be learned rather than appearing instinctually; which includes technologies such as the use of medicines and hand tools; and which differs from band to band (**), what can we call this, logically, other than "culture?" It may be a very simple culture, but isn't a very simple culture what one would expect to find in creatures of high but still subhuman average intelligence?
We need to expand our concept of "human" -- in the moral and civil-rights sense -- to include at least a few other terrestrial species. If we can't accept orcas or elephants or even bonobos (***) as kindred spirits, what chance do we ever have of getting along with extraterrestrial aliens, when we expand out into the Universe?
- Jordan
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(*) This is an important point. Since some words or phrases may be spoken more than others, and since the meaning of some may be altered in context by the use of others, this means that there are probably a LOT more than 50 possible utterances, both because there are vocalizations/gestures that humans have never observed and because some utterances may mean different things in combination with others -- "big fruit" and "big leopard," frex, would provoke VERY different reactions in the other chimpanzees!
(**) In the case of some animals, we have discovered that different groups speak different "dialects" of their species signalling system. It is possible that these differences may extend to the existence of different languages, which would both be wonderful and unfortunate -- wonderful in terms of the implicit level of intelligence; unfortunate in that it would mean that we would have to learn (for instance) the chimpanzee languages as opposed to language if we wanted to communicate with all wild chimpanzees.
(***) I emphasize bonobos because they are our closest kin (the bonobo subspecies may be marginally more closely related to us than the chimpanzee subspecies of pan) and because morphologically and perhaps behaviorally they may be very close to our ardapithecene ancestors. Bonobos even look, to the untutored eye, more human than do chimpanzees. And they are fairly easy to get along with -- unlike chimps, they rarely go berserk. They are also somewhat smaller and weaker than chimpanzees -- though most bonobos are still stronger than most humans.
When a species has at least 50 separate vocalizations and gestures known to human observers (*) in use (as is the case for some chimpanzee bands), this is clearly "language." It may not be syntactical language (it may for instance be limited to "noun-verb" at most in terms of its parts of speech, and may be forced to use noun combinations instead of what we would think of as "adjectives"), but it is still language.
And when there is a whole complex pattern of behavior, which must be learned rather than appearing instinctually; which includes technologies such as the use of medicines and hand tools; and which differs from band to band (**), what can we call this, logically, other than "culture?" It may be a very simple culture, but isn't a very simple culture what one would expect to find in creatures of high but still subhuman average intelligence?
We need to expand our concept of "human" -- in the moral and civil-rights sense -- to include at least a few other terrestrial species. If we can't accept orcas or elephants or even bonobos (***) as kindred spirits, what chance do we ever have of getting along with extraterrestrial aliens, when we expand out into the Universe?
- Jordan
===
(*) This is an important point. Since some words or phrases may be spoken more than others, and since the meaning of some may be altered in context by the use of others, this means that there are probably a LOT more than 50 possible utterances, both because there are vocalizations/gestures that humans have never observed and because some utterances may mean different things in combination with others -- "big fruit" and "big leopard," frex, would provoke VERY different reactions in the other chimpanzees!
(**) In the case of some animals, we have discovered that different groups speak different "dialects" of their species signalling system. It is possible that these differences may extend to the existence of different languages, which would both be wonderful and unfortunate -- wonderful in terms of the implicit level of intelligence; unfortunate in that it would mean that we would have to learn (for instance) the chimpanzee languages as opposed to language if we wanted to communicate with all wild chimpanzees.
(***) I emphasize bonobos because they are our closest kin (the bonobo subspecies may be marginally more closely related to us than the chimpanzee subspecies of pan) and because morphologically and perhaps behaviorally they may be very close to our ardapithecene ancestors. Bonobos even look, to the untutored eye, more human than do chimpanzees. And they are fairly easy to get along with -- unlike chimps, they rarely go berserk. They are also somewhat smaller and weaker than chimpanzees -- though most bonobos are still stronger than most humans.