Human and animal communication

 Human and Animal communication

          Language is a specific characteristic of human beings. Animals do not use language. Humans use language for communication, but it does not mean that there is no communication between animals.

                      In animals communication takes place with different ways. For example, bees (मधमाशी); among bees the communication takes place with the help of bee-dancing. But this is a limited communication because they could communicate only three things – (i) the location of the source of nectar (मध), (ii) the direction of the source from the hive (हाइव्ह: मधाचे पोळे) and (iii) its distance. They cannot communicate anything except nectar. In gibbons (गिबन: माकडाची प्रजाती), communication takes place with their system of calls. The number of such calls is finite and small. They have at least nine different calls. The point is that in animals also communication takes place. However, animal communication varies from human communication. The points of differences are as follows -

1.             Duality is essentially the characteristic of human language. Duality means the arrangement of phonemes and morphemes. Such duality is not seen in animal communication.

2.            A human being may say something that   he has never said nor heard before; and this new statement is understood perfectly by his audience. That means human communication is productive. To some extent bee dancing is productive. A bee can report entirely new source of nectar. But at large animal communication is not productive.

3.            Human communication is arbitrary. There is no relationship between the word and its meaning. The meanings of words are accepted notions, and so various languages exist. Otherwise there could have been only one language in the world. On the other hand in animal communication there is no arbitrariness. There is resemblance between their utterances and the meaning.

4.            Interchangeability:   A human being can be at a time a speaker as well as hearer. He can change the roles. That is what we mean interchangeability of human language. To some extent, bee–dancing and gibbon calls involve interchangeability. But generally animal systems lack this characteristic. One cannot imagine gazelles roaring or lions fleeing (हरणे गर्जना करू शकत नाहीत; सिंह हरणासारखे चपळाईने पळू शकत नाही.).

5.            In human communication it is possible to communicate without physical involvement or gestures. Thus human communication is specialized. But animal communication is not possible without physical involvement. Gestures, physical involvement are the parts of their communication (certain animals are exceptions).

6.            Animal cannot make statements about what happened at a distant place in past or what may happen in future. That means, animal communication has no displacement. On the other hand, displacement is the characteristic of human communication.

7.            Animals acquire communication system genetically. They do not need teachers for this activity. On the other hand, human beings can not learn a language by birth. They have to acquire it by cultural transmission. (प्राण्यांना त्यांची भाषा उपजत येते; मानवाला भाषा आत्मसात करावी लागते.)

8.            Human communication is open ended i. e. new items are continually added to it. On the other hand animal communication is a closed system, new items cannot be added to it. (मानवी भाषेतून अमर्याद स्वरूपाचा संवाद घडून येऊ शकतो; प्राण्यांच्या संवादाचे स्वरूप मर्यादित असते.)

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