Is Language uniquely human?

Question

Do animals communicate?

Answer 1

Yes they communicate too. But human language is unique. I'll tell you the differences later when I get home!

Ok, so here's something I copied from my project for one of my linguistics courses;

Humans have both physical and psychological features that enable them to speak and these features are not shared by other creatures. It is assumed that humans have a language organ in their brain. This language organ receives input from the environment, and human speech is the result of the processing of this input in LAD. Also, our lips, teeth, and larynx make it possible for us to produce the sounds perfectly. However, this does not mean that humans are the only creatures that can communicate with each other. Animals, like apes, bees, birds, bears, dolphins, and etc. are also capable of communicating with their own species.
Animals communicate in different ways. For example, crabs communicate by waving their claws, or bees have special dances to show the source of the nectar. Moreover, birds, dolphins, cows, monkeys, and many other animals use sound signals in order to communicate. This means using sounds as a means of communication is not a unique feature of human language. However, the way of using the sounds is a bit different in humans. Most animals automatically know how to communicate without learning. Their communication system is inbuilt. Furthermore, in animal communication the important thing is to communicate about here and now. On the other hand, humans need to have a language acquisition process in order to produce sounds.
There are two kinds of communication- intentionally and unintentionally communication. While we are speaking with someone, we obtain some information by the signals that the speaker unintentionally sends. For instance, we understand that s/he is cold, if s/he sneezes. This kind of communication is called ‘unintentionally communication’. On the other hand, if s/he says “I was tired, so I went to sleep early.” it is ‘intentionally communication’. Animals have no unintentional communication; however, their intentional communication is restricted to here and now. Below are some of the distinctive features of human language;

1 Arbitrariness
It is clear that in animal communication there is a link between signals and messages. Each variety of animal communication consists of a fixed and limited set of words which are not arbitrary. An animal that wishes to warn off an opponent may symbolize an attacking attitude. For instance, a cat will arch its back, spit and appear ready to pounce. Bees perform special dances when they find a new source of nectar.
However, when we talk about the human language, we see that there is no logical connection between the signal and the message. This means that there is no connection between the object and its name. No one can answer the question of “ why we call apple ‘apple’ or elephant ‘elephant’?”
Yet in all languages there are onomatopoeic words which are the imitations of natural sounds. In English we have bang, crash, splash, quack and etc. And in Turkish we have şırıl şırıl , çıt çıt, vız and so on.

2 Duality
As we have mentioned above, using sounds as a means of communication is not unique to humans. Most of the animals use sound signals, though they have a restricted number of sounds. A cow has under ten, a chicken or a fox twenty and etc., but in animal communication a particular type of noise is usually associated only with one particular type of meaning.
However, it is different in human language. Each language has a stock of sound units or phonemes which are similar in number to the basic sounds possessed by animals. Each phoneme is normally meaningless in isolation, and it becomes meaningful only when it is combined with other phonemes. We, humans, have a limited number of sounds but an unlimited production. By this unique feature, we send a great number of messages. Therefore, ‘duality’ is the organization of language in two layers. In the first layer, we produce individual sounds like f, g, d, o, and in the second layer we result in a meaning by combining the sounds with others. For example, we end up with words like fog, dog, god by combining these sounds.

3 Patterning
Most of the animal communication systems consist of a simple list of elements. There is no internal organization within the system. On the other hand, humans do not use sounds and phonemes in a random way. Humans ring the changes on a few well-known patterns. For example, if we want to arrange the sounds a, b, s, and t, we end up with only four possible combinations- tabs, bats, stab, bast- because of the English pronunciation system. The same feature can also be exemplified in a sentence-based context. For example, if we want to combine the words “the, girl, speak, fluently”, we would end up with sentences:
The girl speaks fluently.
The girl, fluently, speaks.
Fluently, the girl speaks.
but not with sentences like:
The fluently girl speaks.
The girl speak fluently.
In every language, each item has its own characteristic place in the total pattern.

4 Displacement
This is the ability to use a communicative device in the absence of the original stimulus. Most animals can communicate about things in the immediate environment only. A bird utters its danger cry only when danger is present. It cannot give information about a peril which is removed in time and place. It seems that animal communication is almost designed for this moment. It cannot be effectively used to relate events which are far removed. For example, when your cat comes home after spending the night in the garden and stands at your feet calling meow, you are likely to understand this message as relating to that immediate time and place. If you ask the cat where it was the night before, you may get some meow response. This type of spontaneous utterance is nearer to a human baby’s emotional cries of pain, hunger, or contentment than it is to fully developed language.
Human language, by contrast, can communicate about things that are absent as easily as about things that are present. This property of human language is called ‘displacement’. It does occasionally occur in the animal world. For example, in the communication of honeybees, if a worker bee finds a new source of nectar, it returns to the hive and performs a complex dance in order to inform other bees of the exact location of the nectar which may be several miles away. However, even bees are limited in this ability. They can inform each other only about nectar. We have no evidence for such a capacity among apes or other mammals.
Human language can cope with any subject whatever, and it does not matter how far away the topic of conversation is in time and space. One of the interesting questions to be asked on the origins of language is ‘How man’s ancestors came to be able to convey not only messages like “Watch out for that leopard” but also “Watch out for that leopard when you cross that open place near the river; I saw one there this morning.” Moreover, it is the property of displacement which allows the human, unlike any other creatures, to create fiction and to describe possible future worlds. It enables us to talk about things and places whose existence we cannot be sure of. We can refer to mythical creatures, demons, fairies, angels, etc.

5 Creativity
This is the ability to make up new messages readily rather than having to stick exclusively to an already existing repertoire. Most animals have a very limited number of messages they can send or receive. The male of a certain species of grasshopper for example, has a choice of six. Not only is the number of messages fixed for the grasshopper, but so are the circumstances under which each can be communicated. All animals, as far as we know, are restricted in communication in a similar way. Bees can communicate only about nectar. Dolphins, in spite of their intelligence and large number of clicks, whistles and squawks seem to be restricted to communicating about the same things again and again.
Also, even the clever vervet monkey, which is claimed to make thirty-six different vocal sounds, is obliged to repeat these over and over. Among the vervet monkey repertoire, there are two different danger signals. One of them is “Chutter”, and is used when a snake is around. The other is “rralip” and is used when an eagle comes by, and we have no evidence that the monkey could produce a new danger signal.
This type of restriction is not found in human language which is essentially creative. This property of human language has been turned into ‘productivity’. Humans can produce novel utterances whenever they want to. Even a child learning the language is especially active in forming and producing utterances which s/he has never heard before. A person can utter a sentence which has never been uttered before, in the most unlikely circumstances, and still be understood. If, at a party, someone said “There is a purple platypus crawling across the ceiling”, friends might think that the speaker was drunk or drugged, but they would still understand the words spoken. Moreover, in an everyday routine situation a person is not obliged to say the same things every time. Someone might even say “ This is good coffee”, another day “Is this tea or coffee”, and on the next “ It would be cheaper to drink petrol on the next time”.

6 Cultural Transmission
Language is not instinctive, but is a part of the learned behavior of human beings. You may inherit brown eyes and dark hair from your parents, but you cannot inherit their language. You acquire a language in a culture with other speakers, and not from parental genes. For example, an infant born to Chinese parents who is brought up from birth by English speakers in the USA may have physical characteristics inherited from his/her natural parents, but s/he will inevitably speak English. This process whereby language is passed on from one generation to the next is described as ‘cultural transmission’. It is clear that people are not born with the ability to produce utterances in a specific language such as English.
The general pattern of animal communication is that the signals used are instinctive and not learned. There is some experimental evidence which suggests that some birds do actively learn the distinctive calls used by their species. If those birds are reared in isolation, they will instinctively produce songs, but these songs will be abnormal in some way. However, human infants growing up in isolation produce no “instinctive” language. Cultural transmission of a specific language is crucial in the language acquisition process.

7 Discreteness
The sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct. For example, the difference between a /p/ sound and a /b/ sound is not actually so great, but when these sounds are used in speech, they have different meanings. The fact that the pronunciation of the forms ‘pack’ and ‘back’ leads to a distinction in meaning can only be due to the difference between the /p/ and the /b/ sound. This property of language is described as ‘discreteness’. Each sound in the language can be thought as discrete. For example:
cut – put
fine – wine
boot – foot
Whenever a pronunciation falls within the physically possible range of sounds, it will be interpreted as a linguistically specific, a meaningfully distinct sound.

8 Other Properties
Human language does, of course, have many other properties apart from what we have mentioned above, but generally they are not unique to human language, the use of the vocal sound system, for example. When animals communicate with one another, they may do so by a variety of means. Crabs, for example, communicate by waving their claws at one another, and bees have a complicated series of ‘dances’ to inform the others whereabouts a source of nectar, but such methods are not as widespread as the use of sounds which are employed by humans, grasshoppers, birds, cows, monkeys, and many other species. Thus, our use of sounds is in no way unique.

Answer 2

Well, communication is not the same as language. Animals can communicate, but language is a privilege of human beings.

Answer 3

Many animals communicate in their own way.
Primates have very sophisticated methods of communication among themselves, and also have the ability to learn sign language to communicate with humans.
Dolphins and whales communicate via sounds, and there are ongoing studies trying to understand their "language."
Pets are observed communicating with owners, readily making their needs known.
Our pattern of speech is unique, but communication is universal.

Answer 4

Yes, language is uniquely human. No other animal communication system comes even close to the complexity and flexibility of human language. For example, in human language we are able to create unique expressions every single day that no one else has ever said, and because human language is composed of multiple small units put together by rules, every other speaker of our native language can understand what we just said. No animal communication system is like that. Human language is constantly inventing new words to describe new things. No animal communication system is like that. Human language is multi-level in its complexity--sounds are put together to form morphemes, morphemes are put together to form words, words are put together to form sentences, and sentences are put together to form discourse. No animal communication system is like that. Human language is completely unique.

Answer 5

Language is a means of communication but not the exclusive one

Answer 6

If I were to stare long and hard at you without twitching my lips in the least, wouldn't you respond in any way? Substitute me for a baboon or a pug... won't you still sense the magic of the phenomenon named body language? And vice versa... it's all universal :)

Answer 7

Yes coz of human interlect.

Answer 8

I would say it depends on how rigorous is your definition of "language". I would tend to say no.

Answer 9

yes,scientifacally we know they can communicate using their expressions and send certain simpe messeges like "get off my territory" by barking or wat ever noises that perticalar animal might make.i myself believe that animals can communicate in nearly as complex way as we do in our languages...when i was little i used to pray to God to let me talk to them too :)