Animals make 'wild' syllables – Can Animals Grammar? #4

Animated profiles of small sound and gesture units heard and seen in animal repertoires, from elephants to canids to jacky dragons.

~ Shortly and sweetly ~

Last time we met "talking animals" trained by humans to speak. This time let's turn our eyes and ears toward "wild" communication systems. Part 4 of Grammanimals shows off some of my favorite one syllable repertoires from felids, elephants, giraffes, canids, jacky dragons and rats. We'll get mere hints of more complex sequences to come.

Please watch parts 1 through 3 for background and buildup. Next time, are nonhuman "syllables" at all "word-like"? Are they linguistically meaningful?

~ Resources ~

Art, animation and music by me. I wrote a sources document to back up claims and to give credit for all images, fonts and sounds:

In that same document I link to groups focused on animals, their habitats and the people who care for them. There's a narrative tie-in that I hope works at the end of the series; meanwhile I'll just mention and link:

[Minty]

4:20 "how do giraffes locate one another"

...they are like 15 feet tall in a mostly flat savannah.... I'd assume they just... ya know.... look around

[eugenioarpayoglou]

Fish also vocalize. I've heard my clown fish make grunts and clicks, usually when they want food.

[stefan_popp]

As a biologist studying (among other things) communication in ants, I really appreciate this series and commend you doing it for joy, not the views.

[meretofabydos]

That sentence of kitten purrs made me remember an academic lesson I one participated. We talked about about de different „s“ sounds in different languages to put it simply and an syrian student told us the different variants in theirs - most of them sound to us, unfamiliar with it, exactly the same. Not one could make out differences between them. What we hear and expect from our prospective an possible mislead us, as different animal species could have possibly developed an completely different form of communication.

[NativLang]

Halfway through the series!
But too many especially communicative species remain. Stick with me a bit longer.

[PlatinumAltaria]

Human calls: screams, shouts, laughs, cries, moans and groans, gasps, snorts, sighs, coughs, sniffs, and of course the "huh?".

[AlannaStarcrossed]

My last cat was very vocal. She had something like 14 different meows and vocalizations that I could identify. Ranging from greeting, initiating some kind of activity, requesting help for things, and expressing emotional state. I always understood her easily

[LaCarchita]

babe wake up new nativlang video dropped

[iainb]

I am thoroughly enjoying this series. Linguistics from the ground up.

[shuetomtqasaab]

When I hear "visual communicating" in context of animals, my brain is screaming "bees!!!"

[slyraccoon]

Thank for making these long ago enough to have given me a love for Linguistics, and long enough in duration to follow me to my Masters. :)

[CapriUni]

Now, I find this kind of research a lot more interesting than trying to teach human languages to nonhumans. Not only is the latter presumptuous, and dehumanizing to actual humans who use sign and augmented communication tools, I think we can learn so much more from studying communication between creatures on their own terms. After all, *our* languages must have come from somewhere.

[IvoTichelaar]

Interesting! As a biologist, I often wonder if we make too much of human communication. Obviously human speech is intelligent, creative, diverse, ever changing, so it's definitely special in that sense. However, it does break down into categories like food/hungry, reproduction/sex, etc. We look at body language to help interpret other people's statements.

[jeff]

low views? don't underestimate the Long Tail! 😏

[Krvsrnko]

Although these videos do have lower viewcounts, I think these are some of the best on the channel! I love how deep you dug to uncover all this information, and the methodical way it is presented in these videos!

[marmite]

maybe the views are lower but i am so deeply interested in this subject and always look forward to the next episode

[noelleggett]

I used to have a beagle who swore like a sailor at me whenever she didn’t get her way. I didn’t teach her those barks; she must have picked up that ‘potty muzzle’ from the dog park.

[florisred]

I think the low view count just means people haven't discoverd this. Maybe once the whole video (at the end of the series) comes out, the algorithm will push it and more people will discover the amazing work youve put in!

[Matthew.Morycinski]

A dog "huff" sounds more like a sneeze. In my experience, the feeling it expresses is "I am satisfied".

[BellaBellaElla]

Doin it fer the joy, and fer the education!! NOT just fer views (which for the record you DO deserve WAY more of!!), THAT'S why you are one of my favorite YouTubers!!! Keep up the great work!!