animals and human language ANIMALS AND HUMAN LANGUAGE | Page 7

There are a lot of stories about creatures that can talk.
We usually assume that they are fantasy or fiction or
that they involve birds or animals simply imitating
something they have heard humans say (as Terrence
Deacon discovered was the case with the loud seal in
Boston Aquarium). Yet we think that creatures are
capable of communicating, certainly with other
members of their own species. Is it possible that a
creature could learn to communicate with humans
using language? Or does human language have
properties that make it so unique that it is quite unlike
any other communication system and hence
unlearnable by any other creature? To answer these
questions, we first look at some special properties of
human language, then review a number of experiments
in communication involving humans and animals.