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Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

newscientist.com

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Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#51

Post by floxy »

empath75 wrote: post #16
kjkjadksj wrote: post #13

It is funny how at least the press written about this sort of research seems to imply only humans have language and some new evidence might challenge that notion. Really if you ever own a pet, probably any pet I bet, you find that communication in a way that is arguably a language is pretty low level stuff in the animal kingdom. And it makes sense as it is quite useful for a species to communicate things about the wo…

Language is not just "communication" and not every communication is language. Bees and ants communicate information chemically, but they're not using a structured language. Dogs may growl to intimidate or yelp if they get hurt, and that surely communicates information, but whether they are using a structured language is a matter of research.

Honey bees do the waggle dance though:

https://animalwise.org/2011/08/25/the-honeybee-waggle-dance-...

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#52

Post by contrarian1234 »

mattdeboard wrote: post #20

Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…

By that metric Native Americans are basically animals.. which is problematic.

However arguably humans existed from tens of thousands of years and only really started to make huge technological leaps when writing existed. Prewriting culture is still quite fascinating and complex (ex: Homer or Olmec/Maya art) but it does seem to be stuck at a certain level.

I think Egyptian civilization provides a fascinating mid point where there is writing but it's not very accessible... And Egyptian civilization is slow to develop (it's also very weird they don't have their equivalent of Homer or Gilgamesh)

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#53

Post by igravious »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #52
mattdeboard wrote: post #20

Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…

By that metric Native Americans are basically animals.. which is problematic. However arguably humans existed from tens of thousands of years and only really started to make huge technological leaps when writing existed. Prewriting culture is still quite fascinating and complex (ex: Homer or Olmec/Maya art) but it does seem to be stuck at a certain level. I think Egyptian civilization provides a fascinating mid point…

> (it's also very weird they don't have their equivalent of Homer or Gilgamesh)

i'm not sure if this is the case or not but if it is lack of evidence may not be evidence of a lack! they may have done and it may have not been transmitted to us

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#54

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

someoneontenet wrote: post #49
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #46

> For example, the phrase “blonde dancer” has two independent units: a blonde person who is also a dancer. This seems a rather odd "random" language example, especially coming from New Scientist. Being politically correct by then referring to the "blonde" as a "person" doesn't help much. May as well just use "brunette stripper" as an example - a brown haired person who takes their clothes off for money.

I think that you might be taking that example in bad faith.

Really? How often are blonde-haired men referred to as "blondes" vs women, and if you really feel the need to use "blonde" as your adjective, but insist it's a sexless "person", then how about "blonde engineer" instead of "blonde dancer"?!

I've got nothing against blonde dancers, and am far from politically correct myself, but in a scientific article about language and Bonobos, couldn't they have chosen a more appropriate example such as "yellow banana"?

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#56

Post by [deleted] »

keybored wrote: post #42
mattdeboard wrote: post #20

Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…

Why do you have a strongly held armchair belief about anthropology? Just research it for ten minutes. Some beliefs should be lightly held.

[deleted]

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#57

Post by ceejayoz »

d332 wrote: post #55

> This finding doesn’t mean that bonobos have language, though, because language is the human communication system I hate this attitude. Also, I'm curious how advances in AI will shape our empathy towards animals.

I really wonder if that's a misquote or poor paraphrase. It's not in quotation marks.

> This finding doesn’t mean that bonobos have language, though, because language is the human communication system, says Berthet. “But we’re showing that they have a very complex communication system that shares parallels with human language.”

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#58

Post by mattdeboard »

keybored wrote: post #42
mattdeboard wrote: post #20

Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…

Why do you have a strongly held armchair belief about anthropology? Just research it for ten minutes. Some beliefs should be lightly held.

> Why do you have a strongly held armchair belief?

What an interesting thing to say/ask.

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#59

Post by rqtwteye »

mattdeboard wrote: post #20

Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…

To my knowledge Homo Sapiens developed long before writing was used. And there are plenty of tribes who use only oral transmission. I agree with the idea that we are archivists, be it written or oral. With written you can archive much more info though.

Re: Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans

#60

Post by DonaldFisk »

mattdeboard wrote: post #20

Reinforcing my strongly held belief that what fundamentally sets humans apart isn't spoken language, or tools, or any of that, but rather the fact we write down what we know, then make those writings available to future generations to build on. We're a species distinguished from all others by our information-archival and -dissemination practices. We're an archivist species, a librarian species. Homo archivum. In my o…

The thing that sets us apart from other animals is that we're able to control fire.

By a strict definition of writing (e.g. what we're doing now), people have only been able to write for a few thousand years, and much of the adult population was illiterate until recently. Define it widely enough (visual communication of information), and some other animals (e.g. tigers) also "write": https://animalresearcher.com/why-do-tigers-scrape-trees-at-s...

You could reasonably argue though, that we have passed on information over long periods of time orally, e.g. in epic poems, and that (as far as we know) no other animal does that.

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