Animal language is the modeling of human language in non human animal systems. While the term is widely used, researchers agree that animal languages are not as complex or expressive as human language.
Some researchers including the linguist Charles Hockett, who proposed a list of design features of Human Language, argue that there are significant differences separating human language from animal communication even at its most complex, and that the underlying principles are not related. Accordingly, Thomas A. Sebeok has proposed not to use the term 'language' in case of animal sign systems.
Others argue that an evolutionary continuum exists between the communication methods these animals use and human language. Examining this continuum could help explain how humanity evolved its incredibly sophisticated proficiency for language.
Read more about Animal Language: Aspects of Human Language, Non-primates: Studied Examples, Comparison of The Term With "animal Communication"
Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or language:
“The moose will, perhaps, one day become extinct; but how naturally then, when it exists only as a fossil relic, and unseen as that, may the poet or sculptor invent a fabulous animal with similar branching and leafy horns ... to be the inhabitant of such a forest as this!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I shall christen this style the Mandarin, since it is beloved by literary pundits, by those who would make the written word as unlike as possible to the spoken one. It is the style of all those writers whose tendency is to make their language convey more than they mean or more than they feel, it is the style of most artists and all humbugs.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)