When Animals Communicate, They Are Not Using Language

Language is very important for one’s development because it can affect other areas of development and is critical to a child’s future success. For many other aspects of development, including cognitive, social and psychological language is very necessary. Language occurs before the baby is even a month old. For a developing child, the biggest thing that will contribute to our eventual language development is what we hear. Very soon, as a young infant, we demonstrate a sense of language just by simply the noise, movements, and expression that we make. Within the first year of life the baby is already babbling and speaking a hand full of words in their native language. Also they are much better at comprehending simple words spoken to them around

It is believed that babies develop language when they are in the utero and it continues throughout their lifetime. By twelve weeks old, babies may register the sounds they can hear and at the same time make basic visual, auditory and tactile mind maps (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). This allows the infant to turn towards any familiar sounds and noises. Babies begin to communicate with people around them quite quickly. By two months old, babies begin to make ‘cooing’ and other noises; this indicates the phonological component of language development. By six to nine months babies begin to experience with a mixture of sounds, and often you will hear a baby babbling. Babbling development is similar across many different languages and even hearing impaired babies will go through this stage. They may copy the sounds they are introduced too or beginning to recognize familiar

Language is a system in which sequences of sounds make up words to signify a person, place, idea, or object and eventually becomes a tool through which we communicate. Language development starts at birth with crying. Infants cry to communicate their needs are not being met. At around six months infants begin to form consonant- vowel chains; this is the start of babbling, an essential pre-linguistic skill and milestone in language development. Around the age of eleven months the child will say begin to say their first words, and language continues to develop throughout life. Like many other areas of development language development is influenced by the culture the infant grows up in.

Words are an essential part of everyone's life, from the time a baby is born words are encouraged to stimulate their growth because simply being able to say "milk" or "mama" provides the baby with a huge amount of power. In fact, they were even used to

One reason that i believe that animals can learn and use language is that scientists have shown that they can. In the article “Speaking Bonobo”, scientists were able to teach Kanzi, a bonobo, actually learned how to communicate using various symbols. He along with seven other bonobos are now living inside of a house where they use what they have been taught to do what humans would consider normal day-to-day activities, like using the microwave and opening doors. The bonobos are shown to be able to reach stage four of the language spectrum when Kanzi and his sister actually communicated vocally with each

As nonhuman primates seem to be able to communicate meaningful messages, the question arises whether our ancestors developed language from a similar state.

Specifically, learning language indicates the most stunning ability about Bonobos intelligence. Human is regarded as the intelligence animal because we can use language which distinguishes us with others. Language covers many combinations of words such as grammars, sentences, phrases that only human can understand. Since I was a child, I usually thought that the world of animal had its own language that we did not know about it. Although many species can understand what their species want to transfer in the world of nature by using methods such as waves or signal, but none of them can deliver it into language. But we know this:

Language is perhaps the most concrete way of differentiating between humans and animals. Broca's area-- the center of the brain dedicated to processing speech and language in humans-- is larger in our species than in any other animal. Studies in childhood development have found that young children are able to assimilate language at an alarming rate when compared with other species. Young children start learning how to make vowel sounds and respond to their parents at five months of age and are able to produce basic words, as well as understand the concepts they represent, at around a year of age. We learn to speak before we learn to walk or eat on our own; clearly, language is an integral part of the human experience.

“What makes us human?”, is an unanswered question asked by many. Is it because of our ability to have empathy for others? Or is it because of our cognitive ability which allows us to look into the future? One of the main arguments made that separates humans from animals is our communication style; our language. Is language inherently unique to human? To answer such a question, we first operationally define language as; “a system of communication based upon words and the combination of words into sentences” (University of Oslo). The purpose of language is for us to be able to convey an infinite amount of ideas to one another. Sign language in general also falls under this definition as it has a complex system of rules and syntax that allow the signed figures to function as words. Animal communication on the other hand, is operationally defined as, “the transmission of a signal from one animal to another such that the sender benefits, on average, from the response of the recipient” (Pearce 1987). With this in mind, current research has shown that the answer is that language is inherently unique to humans.

The journey towards language starts in the womb. This is significant because it exhibits how early the development in language begins. It is the first step towards language in humans. Between seven to nine months pregnant, women observe that when there is music or loud noises present, their baby will kick and act restless. In New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Medical

The linguist is wrong towards animals. They are saying a type of ape called a Bonobo can’t learn or use language.The truth is they can because they are intelligent and how they're able to learn.

Can animals learn to use language or is it all a load of monkey business? Animals can not use language because language is an exclusive skill that belongs to humans. Chimpanzees can communicate with each other, but that doesn’t qualify as language. One type of Chimpanzee is learning in a laboratory, however, they are only learning simplistic symbols.

Based on what I read, I believe animals talking has made the story more entertaining. When authors personify a non-living thing or an animal to talk it makes the story more entertaining and exciting. For example, when Rikki needed help from the other animals to stop Nag and Nagania from killing everyone he couldn’t have done it by himself without communicating with them in the same language. When animals talk is if they were humans too. The tool of Personification helps readers to relate to non-human using feelings and emotions.

Professor emeritus, Con Slobodchikoff has been studying prairie dog communication for 30 years, at North Arizona University, and discovered that they have “a sophisticated communication system that has all the aspects of language”. After using AI to analyse the prairie dog’s calls he discovered that: “they have words for varied species of predator and can describe colour of the clothes of a human, or the coat of coyotes or dogs”. This remarkable discovery, although done on rodents, may be the first incredible step into the animal language. Now, he is

Because I feel like we all talk in a high pitched baby voice when talking to a dog. I find animals pretty amazing and usually pretty cute too but it is just amazing that chimpanzees can learn sign language and then also teach it to other chimpanzees. It is just crazy how they can communicate with other human beings. If we didn’t have so skills hardwired into us like crying, we would live in such a different world with a lot more deaths I presume. I also think it is cool that dogs are hardwired to burry things like even though my dog is a total inside dog he hides his bones and toys inside the house like in a laundry baskets full of clothes and in beds under the covers. Even though he would have never been able to see another dog burry their bones outside, he automatically knew that that is what dogs do. It is also weird to think how much we learn at such young ages and how we stop learning so much as we get older although when we do learn when we are older it is probably much more complex but to a baby learning one simple word to them is complex as well. Overall language is really needed in our world and I cannot imagine life without