Animals Languages



Animals learn to communicate with humans use animals languages. Animals language is a modified version of early humans language itself only that animals lack complexity and are less expressive than humans. Primate language is a means to communicate among apes such as bonobos, orangutans, chimpanzees, and gorillas. Humans communicate with these animals using sign language, lexigrams, yerkish and physical tokens. Jacques Vauclair, Francine Patterson and David Premack are well known researchers in primate language.

Humans have used sign language for a very long time. One of the most well known sign languages used by humans is American Sign Language. Animal sign language expresses their feelings and is used for communication. Vocabulary words have been taken from American Sign Language to communicate with the apes. Lexigrams are symbols, which represent something. The symbols are laid down on a flat board called the lexigram board. The lexigram board has three panels with 384 keys. These boards are used to communicate with chimpanzees and bonobos. Yerkish also involves keyboard with punch keys, which have the lexigram symbols. It is actually an artificial language. Computer keyboards are also used to aid animals as most of them can be easily trained for keyboard operation.

Plastic tokens are also used for communication with apes. The apes select a specific token when they want to communicate something. The animal is given training to select the right token. Tokens have symbols or pictures. Not all the apes learn this method of communication properly. During the training, the animal is made to learn by rewarding them following an achievement.

Although animals lack vocal cords and the ability to speak like humans, most animals have vocals of their own as well as animal sign language. Wild apes are known to talk to each other to make the other aware of a possible danger. Animals languages do not have discreteness like human languages. In humans language, discrete units are combined together to make a new word with a meaning. So signs or sounds, in animals languages, cannot be combined to form another sign or sound, which means something. But researchers have proven that animals languages do meet certain requirements of communication and language. But the validity is still disputed, and that is the reason why animals languages haven't been given the status of a true language.

People have questioned the practice of great ape language. Researchers try to understand whether the usage of this language aids the animals to solve their problems better. Also, they study whether the teaching experiences with a primate can be of use when human children are taught. There is without doubt major differences in the ability of animals and human in language and communicating, while their are some similarities. Some say that the apes do not actually understand the language, but instead do a clever trick to get a reward. Also some researches say that the signed gestures do not make grammatically correct sentences. They explain that the arbitrariness is sometimes missing, and there is no clear relationship between the signs or sounds.

Many animals have some behaviors similar to what we speak. Many feel that the animals can understand humans language, and can also use it to reflect their thoughts and communicate with a human. Other than primates, animals such as sea lions and dolphins also use animal sign language and vocals to communicate with humans.

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