Who hasn't ever wished they could talk with animals? What if they already have their own language, and what if we could learn it?
https://curiosity.com/topics/will-we-ever-speak-to-animals-in-their-own-language-curiosity/
Will We Ever Speak To Animals In Their Own Language?
What if you could eavesdrop on the conversations of songbirds or politely introduce yourself to a dolphin? With recent scientific advances, a future like that might not be too far off.
An Elephant Never Splits An Infinitive
In 2017, researchers introduced the world to an animal that's particular about its grammar: a small bird called the Japanese tit. In the same way humans convey meaning through word order ("Attack an enemy" means something different than "An enemy attack"), these birds put calls in a specific sequence to communicate with one another.
Researchers gathered a variety of the birds' own calls and played them back to the flock. As Giorgia Guglielmi writes in Science Magazine, "When a predator threatens the flock, Japanese tits produce something called a 'mobbing call,' with the sequence ABC-D. By itself, the ABC part of the call means 'danger.' But the D part of the call — similar to the 'recruitment call' of a close relative, the willow tit — attracts flock members when there's something to share, such as food. When the two parts are produced together, Japanese tits flock together to mob the intruder."
When researchers played the ABC-D call for the birds, they turned their heads and approached the loudspeaker. But when the sequence was reversed to D-ABC, the birds didn't react. Something similar happens with the Carolina Chickadee, which is a good indication that when it comes to birdsong, syntax matters.
There's at least one animal you can talk to — kind of. Elephant biologist Joyce Pool and a team at the the nonprofit ElephantVoices has...