Reading Time: 2 mins read. Prairie dogs communicate not only through vocalizations, but also through physical interactions, like kissing. Photo by Brocken Inaglory. Get more science news like this Tags: prairie dog rodent. Share 22 Tweet Share. Mihai Andrei Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. The patterns are so distinct, Slobodchikoff said, that human visitors that he brings to a prairie dog colony can typically learn them within two hours.
But then Slobodchikoff noticed that the animals made slightly different calls when different individuals of the same species went by. He and his team conducted experiments where they paraded dogs of different colours and sizes and various humans wearing different clothes past the colony. They recorded the prairie dogs' calls, analyzed them with a computer, and were astonished by the results. Also remarkable was the amount of information crammed into a single chirp lasting a 10th of a second.
Besides being a researcher, Slobodchikoff is an author of the book Chasing Doctor Doolittle: Learning the Language of Animals , in which he profiles many other animals with complex language, including crows and ravens, chickens and vervet monkeys. He believes complex speech is probably common within the animal kingdom.
He blames the fact that humans have long assumed animals are incapable of such intelligence. But words, as used in abstract language, are designators. They point to things abstractly, not concretely.
CAT, when used as a word in a language, is an abstract sign that points to a cat or cats in an abstract — an intellectual — way. Words designators are language, and signals are not. Words are arranged syntactically, to enhance meaning. Some words are nouns, which designate things, and some words are verbs, which designate change or states of being. Proper names designate particular things, and general names designate universals. You will notice that the structure of genuine language, as contrasted with a set of signals, has a metaphysical structure — it uses signs that point to particulars and universals and change and states of being.
Signals lack this metaphysical structure. Signals point to specific things, albeit sometimes as with these prairie dogs with unexpected complexity. But complexity is not the same as abstraction, and it is abstraction that is the hallmark of language. Prairie dogs and other non-human animals are capable of using signals — signs that point to particular things in a concrete way — in order to communicate. Human beings are rational animals, and we are the only animals capable of abstract thought, which is thought that entails contemplation of universals.
We are the only animals capable of using abstract signs — designators — to communicate, and we are the only animals capable of genuine language. Photo: A prairie dog, by skeeze via Pixabay. If so, would you donate so it can continue? Help provide a platform for me and other scientists to keep telling the truth about Darwin and intelligent design in We rely completely on readers like you to make our articles possible. Can I count on your support? Skip to content In a New York Times Magazine article noted earlier here , the author claims that prairie dogs have language.
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