In his book Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication, Arik Kershenbaum notes that animal communication is a young science, and this addition to it, focusing on seven animals, six of them nonhuman, is a fun and fascinating read.
In looking at these six nonhuman species, Kershenbaum concludes that nonhuman “animals can talk. Just not the same way we do.” And, in this book, he’s interested in not only what animals are saying but why and how. While what we view as “language” may be unique to human animals, “our communication and that of other animals has almost as much in common as it is different … Warning sounds and mating calls are common across all animals and, pushed by the spiraling complexity of our social groups, our ancestors built upon those tools until they evolved into the first language.” While Kershenbaum distinguishes animal communication from human language, it’s clear in Why Animals Talk that nonhuman species all have their own respective languages (even if it’s not labeled as such).
Beginning with wolves, “familiar enough to strike a chord but alien enough to show just how different from us animals are,” Kershenbaum focuses on verbal communication, despite the many nonverbal ways all animals communicate. For wolves, he writes, “Communication is the glue that holds this complex society together, and this is no less true for the wolves of the Rocky Mountains than it is for the humans of New York.” Wolves send messages by sound, sight, and smell; sounds include growls, barks, whines, whimpers, yelps, and howls. The differences between these sounds and their intentions are fascinating, and Kershenbaum’s comparison to human voices offers context. The fun facts in this chapter include that wolf howls can be heard at ten kilometers and beyond, and that wolves howl not only to advertise their territory and to keep in touch with their pack but because they like it; they howl when they are all together, as if to celebrate that all is well.
Dolphins have surprising and interesting similarities to wolves, and because their underwater vision is limited to ten meters, they communicate mostly through sounds; they click, whistle, and buzz, almost constantly. The most delightful takeaway from this chapter is that dolphins all have unique names—they are the only animals other than humans to give themselves names. Dolphin whistles are “almost infinitely variable,” but other than their “signature whistles,” which refer to their names, what do their whistles mean? “No idea. Really. No one knows.” Kershenbaum points out that, like wolves, dolphins are very difficult to study in the wild (most of his research is conducted in the animals’ natural habitats).
In the chapter on parrots, the famous African grey Alex makes an appearance, but this chapter is about more than the parrots who can mimic our human language. What most of us know of parrots is nothing like their lives in the wild, much of which remains unknown because “the intimate lives of grey parrots in the wild are largely hidden to us by the harsh environment they call home.” In addition to speaking human language, African greys have two sounds: squawks and whistles. In the wild, they live in large flocks and, like wolves and parrots, “seem to have hit upon similar solutions to some of the problems of group living: know who your neighbors are, tell them what you want, and know what they want of you.” And they do all of this through talking to one another.
A lesser known animal in this book is the hyrax, “an odd, obscure creature, looking something like a cross between a guinea pig and a rabbit,” who lives in the Middle East and eastern Africa and is “extremely vocal—their barking, grating songs ring out over the Middle Eastern hills.” The songs of the hyrax have syntax, and “unlike most songbirds, hyraxes seem to learn this syntax, and adapt the structure of their songs accordingly.” Hyraxes live in groups and are social and cooperative—and one reason the males sing is to establish dominance; the more complex the song, the healthier the animal. They can sing for over an hour at a time, at a volume the American Society of Audiology compares to alarm clocks. “The hyrax … tells us that syntax in animals is fundamental, and probably ancient.”
The last three chapters are devoted to animals closer to home: gibbons, chimpanzees, and humans. The gibbons are the most distantly related to humans—“We went our separate evolutionary ways about twenty million years ago”—but, like humans (and unlike chimps), gibbons sing. They live in female-led social groups, eat mostly fruit, and sing in part to establish territory; gibbon pairs also sing duets.
Chimpanzees, “the closest living non-human relatives you and I have,” also eat mostly fruit (yet they are known to hunt, for which communication comes in handy) and live in complex societies. When it comes to dominance, resources, and mating, chimps “are extremely political animals. They coax and cajole others into siding with them in a conflict … Chimps even manipulate the relationships between other chimps to prevent them from forming coalitions that are too powerful.” Chimps are highly visual communicators, using gestures and actions as well as sounds. Jane Goodall identified thirty different vocalizations and their contexts among the chimps she observed in Tanzania, yet even those calls vary among individuals. As Kershenbaum notes, for nearly one hundred years, humans have tried to teach chimps to speak human language, including sign language, and it’s good to see this chapter focused on the chimps’ own voices, which include the waa-bark, the pant-grunt, the pant-hoot, alarm calls, and laughter.
In the final chapter on humans, Kershenbaum writes, “We humans seem desperate to find a clear demarcation line between ourselves and other animals, and the ability to speak language appears to be the most promising and most robust … It used to be accepted wisdom that humans were the only animals to use tools … And yet, now we know that other animals use tools as well … Perhaps language isn’t quite as clear-cut a distinction as we would like between what is human and what is not human?” He poses the question more humans should be asking: “How different from other animals are we really?”
In his conclusion, Kershenbaum notes, “There are ethical reasons for sharpening our communication with animals. In the past, ‘talking to animals’ has mostly meant giving orders to animals—closely tied with our training them to perform tasks for us … if animals do have the capability to communicate with us with at least some sense of agency and intention, then we are surely obliged to facilitate that … On the other hand, we mistreat (and eat) so many different kinds of creatures, perhaps we are better off not hearing what our dogs and cows and chickens would have to say.” While it is quite true that humans would not want to hear what the animals we use and abuse have to say, the world would be a much better place if we did listen, and if we did better for them.
Midge Raymond is a co-founder of Ashland Creek Press. She is the author of the novels Floreana and My Last Continent, the award-winning short story collection Forgetting English, and, with John Yunker, the suspense novel Devils Island.
