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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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One of Dr Bill’s metaword entries was:
anthropoglot: animal with human tongue; animal capable of speech
Looking it up in eight dictionaries (OK, OK, I know its sad!) I could only find two that gave speech capability as a second requirement. The other six said something like: “animal with human-like tongue, such as a parrot”.
Some questions arising:
- Does the word ‘speech’ necessarily imply the expression of a thought or can it mean simply using the words with no knowledge of why?
- Does a mynah bird use speech or does it just parrot?
- At times, mynah birds will use words and phrases that are relevent to a situation; that is, they respond to a stimulus appropriately. For example I have heard of a mynah that would say "Quiet!" to a barking dog, mimicking its owner's voice, and the dog would stop barking. Cause and effect, but did the mynah want the dog to stop barking or did the barking simply bring the word 'quiet' to its mind?
- Are there two requirements for ‘anthropoglotany’, each of which must be met and would that include or exclude, for example, the mynah bird?
Any thoughts or experience with mynahs?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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there have been some tests, which involved teaching mynah's the color and shape words --circles in red, white and green
squares in blue, purple and orange, and triangles in yellow, pink and brown. (or similar shapes/color combo's)
then they added new colors, and shapes and asked the birds to find all the triagles.. and they birds found the blue and red triangles.. and then asking for all the yellow toys, and the bird seperated out the yellow circles, squares and triangles... (which seems to indicate that birds could identify both colors and shapes, and assigned terms for them- they seemed to understand that yellow was independent of triangle, even if they had learned yellow as "yellow triangle")
but no mynah has ever come up with new words for things..
apes, the learned "fruit" (and specific fruits) and juice (as well as soda, water, and tea..) one ape when first given watermelon, called it a "juicefruit"-- showing it understood the concept of fruit, juice and how these concepts could be used to name something new. Humans do this all the time, (telephone, photograph--etc. we have lots of compound words to express new things that take their names from two seperate ideas/words.)
mynahs only mimic what they have heard. so while they can understand some abstract concepts,)( like "quiet" said in the right tone stops the dog barking) they couldn't form compound words, or concepts them for themselves. Myhans don't answer the questions they hear, they only repeat them.
but this research was on Nova (or some similar science show) more than a few years ago-- and by the time it gets to TV, its old news... I don't know if there is any new research on bird and language.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I've seen some fairly good looking stuff about parrots and language but have suspected the Clever Hans effect.
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old hand
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old hand
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A snippet about Mynahs...
What are known as "Noisy" and "Indian" mynahs are found throughout the eastern part of Australia, having been introduced there long ago.
Both species - plus sparrows and starlings - are categorised as vermin in Western Australia and are destroyed on sight. Significant resources are tipped into the state's 'Starling Patrol', a team of snipers who pick the birds off at our Eastern border (1,500km from Perth). Trees containing nests are also dynamited at sundown, just when all residents are settling in for the night.
Every now and then a container or packing crate being offloaded at Perth's port of Fremantle contains a nest. The whole place is shut down and the Starling Patrol called in to watch, wait and 'pop' the feathered intruders. It usually makes the 6pm news!!
So, when you come to Perth the unusual silence you won't hear is the absence of sparrows twittering. It's what we notice most when visiting everywhere else in the world! With sparrows in their hedges, the older inner suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne sound very English to me.
stales
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addict
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addict
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No expert, dxb; don't know much about mynahs at all, apart from the fact that the origin of the word is from Hindi.
However, I do have some thoughts in response to your questions:
I would make a distinction between speech and language. Any vocalization of sound, I would call speech. Language I would use only for a communicative tool that is the cogent putting together of a set of words and a set of grammatical rules. This complicated process requires the able and efficient coordination of TWO interlinked processes; articulation effected by specific anatomical structures and the brain’s cognitive capacity. Indeed, to talk and converse, we will need perfect coordination between the larynx in the throat and specific areas dealing with speech in the brain, respectively.
From what I have read, song to birds is as important as language to humans. And there is a tremendous amount of similarity between the way children acquire language and birds learn their songs. Both baby birds and baby humans learn the correct patterns of vocalization from the adults; both have a similar pre-talk babble; both have a critical period when the learning is at a peak; both have their language learning centers in the same area of the brain, i.e., in the cerebral cortex. There are many more similarities that I cannot recollect offhand. I think parrots were used for the study.
Contrariwise, chimps do not have a vocal apparatus and they have their learning centers in the brainstem, not the cortex. Effectively, thus, even if chimps can learn words and sign language, their process of learning is not similar to that of humans and is more acquisitive not cognitive. Whilst birds not only possess a high acquisitive capability but also demonstrate similarities of learning as well as functional location in the brain suggesting a possible cognitive capability for language.
anthropoglot: animal with human tongue; animal capable of speech
Maybe an anthropoglot should be defined as any non human creature that is capable of vocalizing human-like speech.
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member
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"So, when you come to Perth the unusual silence you won't hear is the absence of sparrows twittering. It's what we notice most when visiting everywhere else in the world! With sparrows in their hedges, the older inner suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne sound very English to me."
You were in a more placid suburb of Melbourne than the one I inhabited (Kew, somewhat older, kind of inner). A flock of cockatoos that took up residence in a nearby park would sometimes set up such a racket I could hardly hear myself think.
The business of birds using words is one of major interest for me. I've seen birds in pet stores that could obviously associate a noise with an activity. One snapped a rubber band on the wrist of the human that was holding it and shrieked "ouch!". My budgie would beep whenever I approached the microwave. But once she landed on my shoulder and made a noise like running water so many times I went into the kitchen and turned on the faucet, whereupon she ran down my arm and started bathing. Honest to God, I think she was telling me she wanted to take a bath. I'd given her baths like that before but she'd never made the noise first. This seems like more than imitation to me, rather using sound to provoke a response.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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No expert I.
But I once had dinner at the home of a wealthy gentleman who had a mynah bird in an aviary/greenhouse area adjacent to his dining room. You could not see the area from the dining room and vice versa.
There were two ladies and the gentleman-host at the meal. When the ladies first spoke, the mynah whistled and said "Elmer! You old dog." Our host told us the bird always noted the presence of women at dinner!
Further he noted that if there were men's voices only at the meal, the bird would scream "Where are the ladies. Elmer?"
So there you go for what it's worth.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Koko the gorilla uses 1000 signs and understands about 2000 words. Read all about it: http://www.koko.org/world/- Pfranz
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