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Concept
Animal language
Summary
Animal languages are forms of non-human animal communication that show similarities to human language. Animals communicate through a variety of signs, such as sounds or movements. Signing among animals may be considered complex enough to be a form of language if the inventory of signs is large. The signs are relatively arbitrary, and the animals seem to produce them with a degree of volition (as opposed to relatively automatic conditioned behaviors or unconditioned instincts, usually including facial expressions). In experimental tests, animal communication may also be evidenced through the use of lexigrams by chimpanzees and bonobos.
Many researchers argue that animal communication lacks a key aspect of human language, the creation of new patterns of signs under varied circumstances. Humans, by contrast, routinely produce entirely new combinations of words. Some researchers, including the linguist Charles Hockett, argue that human language and animal communication differ so much that the underlying principles are unrelated. Accordingly, linguist Thomas A. Sebeok has proposed to not use the term "language" for animal sign systems. However, other linguists and biologists, including Marc Hauser, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch, assert an evolutionary continuum exists between the communication methods of animal and human language.
Human language contains the following properties. Some experts argue these properties separate human language from animal communication:
Arbitrariness: There is usually no rational relationship between a sound or sign and its meaning. For example, there is nothing intrinsically house-like about the word "house".
Discreteness: Language is composed of small, separate, and repeatable parts (discrete units, e.g. morphemes) that are used in combination to create meaning.
Displacement: Language can be used to communicate about things that are not in the immediate vicinity either spatially or temporally.
Duality of patterning: The smallest meaningful units (words or morphemes) consist of sequences of units without meaning (sounds or phonemes).
Official source
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