Thomas_More
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This need for you to separate language from communication is, regardless of your protestations, the narrowing by you of the definition of language to apply only to the human ape. I have provided links where the word language is used, by scientists, in reference to many species who use both vocal sounds and body language to share information, different types of information, etc. But you will never allow the use of the word in application to other species, although you say “maybe.”
I put forward that the word is for speciesists (including kind-hearted paternalistic ones) such a bastion of human “uniqueness” that it must never be applied to other species lest we be “dethroned.”
The policy has to be, in debate over nonhuman intelligence, societies and abilities, that it must be proven whether nonhuman animals “match up” to the human. This assumption, rooted in human society, judges all life by comparison to the human, who is (as a Socialist Standard article once called) “Nature’s supreme achievement.”
Pyramidal, hierarchicalism writ large! (That article went on to say that, having produced us, this planet has nothing further of any interest to produce.It manipulates too, to trap prey, and it conveys emotions to others, such as humans who deign to notice.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/animal-emotions/202308/octopuses-the-fascinating-lives-of-sensitive-clever-beingsOctopus Communication Unveiled: Unlocking Their Secret Language
Now we have established that fellow animals also possess language, maybe we can get this thread back on track discussing language and society in general.
Ok. Thank you.
Well, i would say prairie dogs. Bees. The fish mentioned in the article i linked to, who use different signs to convey a definite message, and all animals, both aquatic and terrestrial, that, like octopuses and squids, use colour changes and touch to convey emotions and closeness in the same way.
And definite sign and vocal language accompanies mating, and death. Elephants, monkeys, lions, birds and insects mark death with “funerals”, and display ritual behaviour.
Wolves too have a rich repertoire of sounds signifying different things. Lionesses hunting make use of a complex set of processes to isolate prey and manipulate it into their trap. Squids have acted in unison to destroy human traditional fishermen in small boats. The list goes on.
The error is to compare between species. We do what we do; they do what they do.Define the word language, including non-vocal body language. What divides body language from “mere” communication? And why is nonhuman communication not body language? Or does only your own species deserve the word?
See Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and [other] Animals.
The fact that you would separate language and communication shows that you only define language in its verbal, human-specific form. Then you allow communication as something other animals and machines (fire alarm) have in common, relegating the former to the status of the latter.
Then, when challenged, you both squeak “That’s not what i said.”
Then you bring up head lice and trees to bolster your prejudice and to make fun.
All are typical ploys used again and again here on all threads where nonhuman animal intelligence is mentioned.
Yes … Tells me a lot about you, comrades.So you are cleverer in zoology than the scientists whose reviews i have provided links to, are you? Like Marc Bekoff, whose entire life has been spent studying nonhuman emotions and interactions.
Woe betide anything should threaten your smug human centrality, or anyone suggest you read some science and familiarise yourself with anything new that challenges that centrality and “species uniqueness.”Talking with Animals https://g.co/kgs/iiWBnJn
Charlotte Uhlenbroek.
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Fish live in social groups, they don’t have any verbal language, it’s quite difficult to speak without a voice box or lungs.”
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The fact that you mention speech and voice box only confirms that you are interpreting the word language only in terms of the verbal.Book review.
” The Voices of Nature also deals with the thorny question of whether animals have language. I explain that there are two sides to this question. Firstly, whether animals can express something other than their current emotion by controlling what they produce—to determine whether animal acoustic communications contain organizational rules similar to those of human language (syllables, words, syntax, etc.). Based on the scientific work of the last 40 years, I defend the idea that we can describe an animal’s acoustic communication as a “language,” because it’s a handy term to use to summarize a system in which an individual sender produces an information-carrying sound signal, but there are as many languages as there are animal species, each is in its own world.
” Biological evolution is the thread that connects us all, human and nonhuman animals alike, and discovering animal languages is a great way to realize just how interconnected we all are on this planet.”
