7-minute read
keywords: ethology

This is the second of a three-part review on acoustic communication in animals. Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum impressed me with the previously reviewed The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy. That popular work on astrobiology was a diversion from his actual research on vocal communication in animals. Rather than asking what animals are saying, Kershenbaum is foremost interested in why animals talk in the first place. How do they live, what do they need to say to each other, and are there any parallels with human language? The answers Kershenbaum presents are a highly stimulating and thought-provoking exercise in decentering the human experience and trying to understand animals on their terms.

Obviously, animals communicate via many more channels than just sound and Kershenbaum happily admits that each of these is worthy of their own book. He focuses on vocal communication both because sound is a very useful medium, and because it interests us as a vocal species ourselves. He further narrows down his approach by discussing six animal species: wolves, dolphins (the subject of many misconceptions), parrots, hyraxes (which look like rodents but are related to elephants), gibbons, and chimpanzees. As alluded to above, the core idea propelling this book is that “why animals need to talk is the important question to ask before we can answer how and what animals are saying” (p. 14). What these six species share is that they are highly social and negotiate their social environment using complex communication. Though Kershenbaum promises to put the animals first and the science second, I found his take on the science to make for a particularly captivating book. How so? Well…

First, he stresses the importance of studying animals in the wild, in the natural environment they evolved in. This is hard and time-consuming work and the literature on e.g. hyraxes and gibbons is rather limited, while that on wolves risks being biased by the preponderance of research done in Yellowstone National Park. Our knowledge of parrots is coloured by their popularity as pets, whereas their communal lives in the wild are rather different. Only chimpanzees can be said to be intensively studied in the wild. Kershenbaum’s conviction is that “we can’t understand animal communication without understanding animal societies” (p. 10). Each chapter therefore furnishes you with the basics of their communication—the howls of wolves, the whistles of dolphins, the squawks and whistles of parrots, the multisyllabic songs of hyraxes and gibbons, and the many grunts and hoots of chimpanzees—and how these grease the wheels of their social interactions.

“the core idea propelling this book is that “why animals need to talk is the important question to ask before we can answer how and what animals are saying” (p. 14).”

Closely related to this is the question of what can be learned from the various attempts at teaching animals human language, such as Irene Pepperberg’s work with the African grey parrot Alex, dogs such as Chaser, or decades of experiments with primates. Though some animals show impressive linguistic capabilities, the amount of training required is often extraordinary. The conceptual flaw with such research is that you are training animals to understand human words, ultimately revealing more about our than their language. In the chapter on dolphins, Kershenbaum pointedly asks: “Why should dolphins have a language just like ours? Are human languages really the template for the way that animal communication must work?” (p. 75).

This brings me to the idea that I consider to be the showstopper of the book. To really understand animal communication means kissing goodbye to the human-centric notion of words. “Just because we’ve developed a language based on distinct words doesn’t mean that is how others must communicate” (p. 74). Kershenbaum hammers home this message explicitly in the chapters on wolves, dolphins, hyraxes, and gibbons. What these species share is that there rarely is a one-to-one relationship between a sound and a concept. Even alarm calls warning of predators vary in some species. The six animals explored here use vocal communication to “relate to emotional states, rather than intellectual ones” (p. 241). Thus, there is no dictionary to draw up, no key or cypher to find to “crack the code”. He is sceptical of recent attempts that throw deep-learning algorithms, neural networks, or artificial intelligence at the problem. We should focus on understanding the animals first, “rather than hoping for human-like information, and searching doggedly for what we want to find” (p. 77). Wrapping your head around this one is an exercise in decentering the human experience.

“To really understand animal communication means kissing goodbye to the human-centric notion of words.”

It should be evident by now that there is an anti-anthropocentric streak running through this book. But next to the usual “humans are not the pinnacle of evolution” sentiment espoused by biologists, he also objects to the idea that animals converse with each other like humans but in their own languages. This is just anthropocentrism in reverse that still takes the human experience as the universal yardstick. Kershenbaum instead explodes the idea: animals do not have human-like language because they have no need to. “Nothing about the behaviour of wolves or dolphins or even humpbacks gives any indication that having a language like ours would be useful to them” (p. 243). While this may sound controversial, examining the details of their lives reveals that, compared to the open-ended language of humans, “the amount of information they need to convey to each other is, in most cases, limited” (p. 235). Though we find elements of linguistic ability scattered all over the animal world, no other species combines these as we do. Kershenbaum admits that human language* really does seem to be unique, or rather uniquely weird. “It’s almost as if words were an afterthought, an embellishment on communication. Unnecessary glitter attached to the ordinary kind of signals that animals send to each other all the time” (p. 219). I am going to invoke what I wrote elsewhere about Justin Gregg’s book If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal. Rather than concluding that human-like language does not readily evolve, maybe we should conclude that it readily does not evolve. Gregg argued along the same lines when he concluded that most animals seem to be getting by just fine without evolving human-like intelligence.

Whereas the previously reviewed The Voices of Nature wandered widely through the noisy realms of bioacoustics and suffered slightly in its organisation, Why Animals Talk is a more focused affair that organises its contents in each chapter with helpful subheadings. Mathevon only touched on the question of whether animals have a language in his final chapter, making this the perfect follow-up. While the biological details are interesting by themselves, what elevates this book is how Kershenbaum forces you to rethink linguistic concepts you have always taken for granted so that you may understand animals on their terms, not ours. In the process, he throws out as many unanswered questions as he provides insightful answers to others. Needless to say, I found Why Animals Talk to be an incredibly captivating and stimulating book.

Of course, discussing acoustic communication in animals would not be complete without considering humans. Join me as I next turn to Shane O’Mara’s Talking Heads.

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* Some readers might be frustrated by Kershenbaum’s refusal to provide a formal definition of language. This is not an oversight, but a conscious decision that he defends by pointing out the lack of a universally agreed-upon definition.

Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.

Why Animals Talk

Other recommended books mentioned in this review:

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