Language is a gift, and this is one
of the main ideas of the 2004 heart melting movie, Pauli. The story of a bird, which
is domesticated by a little girl with a speech impediment. Amazingly, Pauli
learns to speak correctly human utterances at the same time of his friend,
Mary. Apparently, stories like this one remain true only to Hollywood. Multiple
experiments and researches with animals have been made, however the results resemble
the ultimate thought of animal´s lack of capability to produce human language. Legitimately,
humans consider as granted the use of language, not specifically language as a
type of communication system, but the one allowed through evolution, the highly
complex system of sounds and structures, and this capacity indeed should be
proclaimed as human property.
About the why animals do not share
the same system of communication with humans, there are marked distinctions
such as creativity, cultural transmission and displacement. The first one
refers to the capability in human language to invent new words easily or the
simple fact of combining signs through syntax or apply the duality of pattering
ability to come up with an extended number of sounds to create meaning via
words and sentences. Both ideas offer an undeniable overview of the differences
between humans and animals when analyzing language use. Creativity on animals
is not possible. It takes millions of years of evolution for animals to change
a finite number of signs.
Secondly, the cultural transmission
is a characteristic that only human language possess. It is a fact that humans language
through interaction and we acquire it culturally. An adopted baby from Russian
parents will genetically possess all of the physical characteristics of them, however
the language this baby speaks would depend on the language his-her new parents
speak. Animals, on the other hand, communicate biologically, or inborn. As the
examples provided in the Study of language by George Yule, any animal being
raised by a different species would not adopt the language of their protector.
For instance, a dog will always bark and the sound emitted would be woof, for a cat a meow.
Time and its relation to
environment is the third characteristic that comes into play when referring to
Language. Displacement of time refers to the ability to talk about things that
are not happening here or now. Humans can properly make use of displacement of
language. This ability is exemplified in history or projections for the future.
Humans are able to reflect on the past, make an analysis and give opinions
about it. We are capable to plan, to talk about expectations and be molded by
them. We as humans can talk about real
or imaginary situations, on the other hands, animals are only capable to react
to stimuli in the immediate environment, or indexes such as food or danger.
Many are the distinctions found
when trying to compare human language and animals´ mean of communication.
Undoubtedly, animal language cannot be compare to the complex system of
communication human possess. However, we cannot say that animals are not capable
of communicating at some level with us. Languages are different, but the
purpose of communicating is achieved by different means. Wether it is a
biological feature or a social reason, human language evolved differently from
the different forms of language of the rest of creatures.
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