Do these animals form grammatical sequences? - Can Animals Grammar? #6

[@NativLang]

📖 In which appears the suffix that sparked this series - And other amazing feats of sequential animal signaling. 📖

[@computergician]

Many generation alpha humans emit signals like. Although some of there are dtupid, there are many incredibly smart humans in this species.

[@computergician]

Signala such as "skibisi sigma pomni digital Fortnite chamba" to signal social status or other "what the sigma" for confusion

[@molivah]

Can you add sound bites of sample calls you are referring to? I think that would more context and help us understand more

[@NativLang]

Good feedback! The few I could find play softly behind my voice (links in sources document). I'll pay more attention to this in the next two

[@andyjay729]

Right now you just learned some words in non-human languages. "Pyow" is putty-nosed monkey for "leopard", and "hack" means "eagle".

[@andyjay729]

Among Campbell's monkeys, the word for "leopard" ("krak") sounds different, but the word for "eagle" sounds pretty similar ("hok"). I know; this is a bit like mass lexical comparison, but still.

[@GannicusMisteriosdeHonduras]

How do you know that?

[@BryanLu0]

​@@GannicusMisteriosdeHondurasputty nosed monkeys - 1:50 Campbell - 3:26

[@Earthenfist]

@lu0z9_the_I So you're saying that the human word for "Predatory bird" also sounds like "Hak"?

[@therationalhuman9874]

@Earthenfist Isn't it?

[@katakana1]

"And do you know who understands sooty mangabeys?" A few humans, apparently.

[@GoldenBeholden]

This series gets so little attention for how many wildly unsupported claims about animal linguistics I see floating around online. Having someone put all the research in order is absolutely invaluable; not just these videos, but also the source document that goes along with it.

[@Saber23]

How “animal linguistics” is even a field or term that’s taken semi-seriously is beyond me

[@jaktrep]

@@Saber23 Well at some point humans didn't have language and now we do. We don't have a time machine to go back and see how language developed in humans, so it's natural to look to animals and see if any of them exhibit language-like behaviour which could shed light on how humans might have developed language.

[@Saber23]

@@jaktrep no as HUMANS we always did have language

[@Lauriciu]

​@@Saber23😂😂😂 we evolved from an ape, we didn't always have the language we have today. languages evolved at the same time as humans evolved into the modern human

[@Saber23]

@@Lauriciu nope we didn’t “evolve from an ape” and even if we did evolve not from an ape but from a defendant of apes which is the actual Darwinian view we as humans would have always had language, stop pretending like watching these videos for entertainment like the rest of us somehow makes you intelligent or genuinely knowledgeable 🤣

[@Aspen____]

It's too bad this series hasn't been as popular, these videos have been some of my favorites

[@SeraphimKnight]

Your little quip at the beggining - "find a branch" - it made me giggle a bit. There's a french canadian expression; "Tire-toi une bûche." Translated literally it means "pull yourself a log", but the meaning is actually "take a seat and join in". That you use a similar expression to convey a similar feeling was very funny to me even though I doubt you know about that one.

[@kiminnehalem8669]

Love these!!! I only wish for accompanying examples of the actual vocalizations (the squid example was great as we could see it). I look forward to the next one!! Thank you so much for all your work and sharing it with us!

[@uplink-on-yt]

9:51 "The first segment is stable / always the same." My first thought: synchronisation signal. Think dialup modem, or any protocol with a handshake. Or like human saying "Listen" (or e.g. "Oye" in Spanish).

[@i_teleported_bread7404]

3:44 - 3:58 So, from a certain perspective, one could analyse this "-oo" suffix as a sort of diminutive?

[@stratospheric37]

That's what I thought as well

[@BellaBellaElla]

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for being youand doing what interests you!!

[@NativLang]

Wow ~ thank you for that positive encouragement!

[@BellaBellaElla]

@@NativLang of course! THIS is why I subscribed all those years ago, you and your interests/insights!! (Also it is frustrating that humans won't admit that we ain't that special.. there is some serious 'language'goin on in these last few episodes!!)

[@JosephCoco]

I think this series is fascinating. My wife seems to be hung up on the idea that, by exploring whether animals grammar, you're implying that grammar (or human-style symbolic communication) is the only important form of communication. I'm really not sure where she got the idea from as you just seem excited to learn about how animals communicate! I love the idea of animals shifting words with an identifier aspect. It reminds me of PGP encryption.

[@stinkymccheese8010]

Can you imagine how much easier ocean exploration could be if we develop the ability to communicate meaningfully with the locals.

[@nlama9663]

Hi NativLang, I love your content, and I just wanted to ask you if you could do a video on the various languages/dialects spoken in the himalayan region and tibetan plateau just like your video on the various languages spoken in Siberia. I think these languages are obscure yet quite beautiful in way and you making a video about them could help uncover these languages to a wider audience. Thanks

[@laceisaverb]

I love this series, I've been fascinated by animal "language" ever since I was a kid obsessed with whales.

[@GaasubaMeskhenet]

My cat wanted to wake us up to give him his wet food so bad. He said "ham" so clearly this morning lol

[@basocheir]

this topic is really fascinating languages usage in non-human animals

[@CarlosMagnussen]

I love your channel! There's always more to learn and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let's see how deep it goes

[@markcox5385]

A few years my wife and I were lucky enough to hear a pair of gibbons singing their beautiful duet at a local monkey and ape rescue centre. The female was clearly pregnant. When we returned a couple of years later we were delighted to hear them joined by their baby in a wonderful trio.

[@origaminosferatu3357]

The fact that each video is so far apart does nothing to impair their fabulous quality. Each episode is a fascinating adventure through animal linguistics and you're clearly pumping a dissertation's worth of research into each one. Keep them coming!

[@ALBULENA953]

Thanks! I never knew animals had some kind of communication i thought they would scream for no reason or when they see a predator.

[@fishypaw]

I once rescued a cuttlefish, that had been washed onto a beach. I carefully carried it back into the sea, until I was knee-high in water, and slowly lowered it into the relatively calm water, in front of me. It just stayed there for a moment, and I watched. After a few seconds, it seemed to start to recover from the ordeal of being beached. It slowly flashed colours across it's body. Just patches at first, but then flashed some stripes too. Then it began to swim forwards. I hypnotically watched as it, then slowly and deliberately, swam a perfect circle around me. It repeated this, and then as it started the third swim around me, it let out a trail of ink, that encircled me. At the end of the third circle, it stopped for a moment, flashed some more colours and stripes, and then swam away at high speed, never to be seen again. I was gobsmacked by what it had done. I have a very scientific mind, and am wary of anthropomorphising, but whatever it was doing, it definitely seemed to be sending me a message. I have no idea what it was trying to communicate, but it felt like a very complex way of thanking me for saving its life ... OR ... maybe it was trying to end its life, and was now trying to give me a lecture about not interfering with the course of nature, and that it was mad at me, and the ink was to tell all its cuttlefish buddies that I'm an arsehole. I'm loving this series. I am grateful for your efforts, including all the research, analysis, and illustrations. I look forward to seeing the rest of the series. Cheers.

[@RustamMajidov]

Literally yesterday was listening to lecture from Svetlana Burlak on the subject and today to Sapolski; now this video comes with great illustration of what was harder for me to get from those lectures. Great job, and thanks!

[@elijahmadden4057]

Get this man some PBS funding, stat!

[@itsapittie]

This is fascinating. Nature never ceases to amaze me.

[@joangalt6270]

Jesus! Seriously amazing! I have a degree in Natural Resource mgt and they NEVER taught us THIS stuff at uni!! I'm so blown away!!

[@frozenBird925]

Thanks for making these!! I'm sorry these videos aren't getting as much attention as normal. Keep it up!

[@senecarlate]

Fascinating video, I'm really glad I saw this! It's strange that the other videos in this series didn't show up in my subscription feed. I'm glad this one did; this is such an interesting topic.

[@liquidlychee]

How interesting! The drawings and images really add to the video; great work!

[@Coolducky2]

Been feeling a bit meh this evening and this video was a delightful distraction from that. Thank you for your videos!

[@golwenlothlindel]

My border collie knew when she was invited on walks. She didn't get overexcited about walks like some dogs, but she would whine and whine and whine if you were going out without her. She also had different bark sequences: one was solely for objects which were supposed to be on the ground (usually cars on overpasses, but she used the same one to fetch us kids out of a tree at dinner time). Bats had a different scolding sequence that was more growl than bark, which also applied to noisy overhead fans.

[@guardianeris]

this is so fascinating, I love the study of animal linguistics, as a wannabe amateur fantasy and scifi writer, it gives me an idea on how to write languages that are nothing like human language

[@dacueba-games]

Really hope this all gets edited into a movie.

[@espumatt]

This is by far one of the most interesting series in an already fascinating channel.

[@shinytomoon]

i love animal languages, it is very evident they are speaking, i hope to learn more about this for sure!

[@marybennett4573]

Loving this series!

[@tazzyhyena6369]

@9:30 Even in humans, not all grammar is sequential. It is very common in signed languages to alter signs to convey different meanings. One sign with one facial expression can mean one thing, and changing the facial expression, intensity of the motion, direction of the movement, etc can change the meaning.

[@earthknight60]

Geladas (Theropithecus gelada) have a lot of really interesting and poorly understood communications. And there are some really interesting mixed species foraging groups that mutually understand each other's calls.

[@CatApocalypse]

I've been really enjoying this series! Looking forward to the next one.

[@doctorofart]

I guess it is possible the wisest human could communicate with animals.

[@roadrunnercrazy]

Thank you for this series. I find it fascinating.

[@marcpegueroles6769]

Hok and "hawk" are very similar 🧐

[@tonydai782]

Entirely coincidental considering that that is definitely not a universal word for a type of bird in humans.

[@Duiker36]

Clearly this means that monkeys speak German.

[@marcpegueroles6769]

@@tonydai782 ye I know, but it amazed me and maybe, and just maybe, hawk and similar words with the same meaning in other languages (I don't know if in other germanic languages exists something like that) are the last vestiges of a "primate language"

[@ArkhBaegor]

Proto-Monke-Germanic confirmed

[@timothystamm3200]

​@marcpegueroles6769 the derivation from Proto-Indo-European eventually has that having a "K" initial sound so no. Weird parallelism though. Though the ancient PIE term for eagle does start with a pretty guttural h.

[@bud-yo]

Sounds nice

[@Mohenjo_Daro_]

The more I watch this series, the more I'm convinced researchers have an unspoken rule that for something to be a language, it must be spoken by humans

[@timothystamm3200]

Anthropologists used to be pretty openly racist and wouldn't take societies at their words. So an Anthropologist took U.S. mid 20th society and wrote it up like an Anthropologist from the time studying it and presented at a major conference. Then he told them what he had done and that broke them out of a similar stupor. It might be helpful if someone recorded human language and gestures and disguised them or at least did a blind presentation of the vocalizations to someone who didn't know that particular language, and passed it off as animals to another researcher and see if they make similar aggressive and frankly philosophical skeptic objections. Then show, hey it's a human. Then present the first part at a conference and then the second and see if that produces a realization. I suspect those who aren't in the know that it's a human language or human gesturing will not be able to tell the difference and see that while "Clever Hans" might be something to be aware of so is human-centrism.

[@paxphonetica5800]

NativLang is our lord

[@BellaBellaElla]

Babe! Wale up new nativelang just dropped!!!!

[@BirdieRumia]

This is incredible stuff. I've heard that prairiedogs have specific calls for different looking human threats. Has there been research on whether those calls have internal structure?

[@r40s]

he talked about that in another video, as part of this series

[@mattkuhn6634]

It's always fascinating to explore animal communication, especially as we gradually come to realize how complex it can be! As much as we think of language as an inherently human trait, it evolved through natural selection like any other trait, and so it stands to reason that there are non-human antecedents. Even if we don't consider this kind of communication to be language, which I think is fair so far, we're never going to find a clear dividing line because that's just not how evolution works. Personally, I share your fascination with cephalopod communication! Our lineages diverged so long ago that whatever communication they are doing is likely to be completely alien to us, and I think that's amazing.

[@the_smart_waterbear1234]

Can you please make an episode on the ampersand? I would LOVE to see it.

[@dishevela]

10:26 The Happy Feet documentaries, that are 100% real, build on this by taking not just penguin calls, but penguin dancing into account. Such wide implications! The mind reels. 😂

[@JayFolipurba]

noisy plus tonal sounds a lot lie consonant and vowel. I love this series, I see it as comparative anthropology. Takes me back to the days of Ur

[@solahifuefos9301]

I love listening to wood doves communicate, they do different patterns but im not sure what they mean

[@robertobahamondeandrade]

When I was 5-10 I liked to fool hens. I made that noise "trrrrrt" that could mean "bird of prey!!" and they sought shelter under bush and chickens ran to shelter beneath hens. Now I know, it was not funny. But it was my only succesful case of verbal communication with animals.

[@peatta]

he's back!

[@LookAwayButYouCant]

“Chirp-Trill-Buzz” topping the charts 🎧!

[@k1j1j1j]

mi lukin e ni lon tenpo lili, musi a :3

[@NativLang]

🎨 pona! 🐱

[@Borskey]

@@NativLang sina sona e toki pona? ni li musi mute. mi wile sona e ni: sina kama sona e toki pona lon tenpo seme? sina ken sona e toki mi la, mi wile toki e ijo ante. taso, mi wile ala sitelen e ona lon tenpo ni. open la, mi wile sona e ni: sina sona ala sona e toki mi?

[@TheGribblesnitch]

I like to think this series was made entirely to spite chomsky

[@TT3TT3]

Thanks!

[@jasoncox7244]

I love this series~

[@silasfrisenette9226]

In my mind, grammar is separate from the segments used. The structure exists on its own and is utilized by filling it in with segments. If the lexical meaning is known, you can hypothetically make sentences that have never been made before and someone who is familiar with the lexical meanings and the grammar will be able to understand it. The question isn't so much if these segments have meanings, to me, the question is whether it would be possible, if a new lexical item was introduced (through basic association), for the animals to apply it to the "structures". If for example a new threat was introduced, real or imagined, and this was assigned it's own call segment, and it would be used readily with the existing segments and affixes .. that would prove a "cognitive" structure, which I'd accept as grammar. To me, some of these seem to only logically have been combined through such an internal structure, and since the first utterances were accepted, understood and adopted by the "speech community", then I can't see why it would not be a primitive form of language and grammar.

[@MoniqueAO888]

That is really interesting - thank you for sharing !!!

[@FutureAIDev2015]

This is why I'm rapidly becoming interested in the computer science related aspects of linguistics. Basically, how do I represent this abstract knowledge in as many distinct ways as possible

[@lingux_yt]

great video as always!

[@m.streicher8286]

I hope when you're done with the series you can edit together a compilation without the recaps and outros.

[@timeworntraveler3644]

This is SO cool.

[@randomguy9241]

Bacteria communicate chemically, so are ants and even trees. But that limits the communication distance. Communication using light, voice or gestures is another level, but only humans were able to use paper, radio and then internet to communicate over even longer distances. And soon, through usage of neuralink some people will be able to share thoughts. So, I believe that the distance and speed of communication are most important factors limiting a species expansion.

[@ltw6888]

My 11yo is having difficulty waiting for the next video in this series.

[@wayfinder1882]

Have you read Ray Nayler's novel "The Mountain in the Sea"?

[@ChrisJackson-se8vs]

I understand your Nativlang but I think it would be really cool if you made your own conlang.

[@nathaliestraussmeyer]

Brazil mentioned

[@brandondavidson4085]

Makes Dr. Dolittle almost seem realistic

[@LeChat084]

It seems some dolphins can communicate a mental picture of something they saw. Ethology ❤ And fishes can do maths.

[@noelleggett5368]

Do they count using fish fingers?

[@lisve]

Could you pleeeeease do a video on the origin and evolution of the American accent? Like you did with the French language about three years ago. It would be so interesting to see why it sounds the way it does!

[@noelleggett5368]

Allan! Allan! (Marmot shouting out to a friend)

[@calmeilles]

Still around? Been subscribed since I don't know when, watched just about everything and shared much of it too. Now far to involved to leave! 🤣

[@munintheraven8812]

animjal make me happy :)

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

The pigeons in Perth don't understand their Sydney counterparts' speech.

[@noelleggett5368]

To be fair, nobody understands those Sydney pigeons!

[@arashniroomand7930]

Nice video 👍 Can you make a video about Persian Language's history and how old Persian language sounded like, Please ?

[@dhooth]

fuck, these are lil guys like me. and they're going away because of us

[@danielbickford3458]

Nifty

[@stephenspackman5573]

Both evolution and neurology are learning engines, while communication is very useful and finite state machines (if not grammars requiring stacks) are highly learnable. I want to hear from animal language deniers their proposals for the mechanisms that would _prevent_ the development of language. My suspicion is that if we're not finding ourselves surrounded by animal language it's because we have some crucial missing insight as to what language is, not because it's not there. My goodness, even DNA has grammar. But for example, depending on the noisiness of the channel, utterances with larger data payloads require acknowledgement and repair mechanisms. Are we looking at contexts where those would be available? And notions like referentiality and declarativity depend on a particular way of separating “things” from their environments that are not necessarily universal; are we exploring this? On a much simpler plane, we are notoriously lazy at looking for signals that we don't receive through our unenhanced senses. Are we making field recordings with wide bandwidths and high framerates and analysing them for signal, or are we just walking into a field and seeing what we notice as being overtly humanoid?

[@GoodNewsEveryone2999]

in Chickadee-de-de-de-de … the extra des relate to scale

[@koimismenoss]

👍

[@pierreabbat6157]

Brrr, hm? The honey's over there.

[@EnglishOrthodox]

POV: you make 6 videos about animals instead of real linguistics 💀

[@GaasubaMeskhenet]

I really hope you'll make more in-depth videos about some of these animals' communication! 😭 💕 🙏🏼

[@magellanicspaceclouds]

Maybe in the future we will have human to animal dictionaries.

[@caramelldansen2204]

😊

[@Imperiused]

Great series! Comment because the algorithm unjustly doesn't promote this series

[@BiancaLilyProduction]

Did you miss the whole section on Brutus?

[@thevalarauka101]

hello

[@NativLang]

Hi

[@Macieks300]

It'd be cool to listen to actual animal sounds you describe rather that your imitations of them.

[@brunosipavicius7867]

👏🏻🌹🙏🏻🌹

[@Mezelenja]

Man comes back the DAY the backrooms was found. Such an icon.

[@Saber23]

Short answer: no they don’t language is unique to humans

[@aeremthirteen2771]

how many of us enjoying this series are autistic though? 😂

[@lotgc]

Such a fascinating topic, but so disappointing. It feels like most animal communication basically just boils down to "Threat! There!" All this effort for very little gain :/

[@fitipapani9805]

whales llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

[@PenguinSlushy123Neeew]

🩷🩷🩷🩷

[@arielschant9841]

Not another one on the same topic in a row 😭