Do Penguins Talk?
Earlier this week I found an article in my news feed on recent research that found that penguin calls share many similarities to human speech. I was pretty surprised, obviously.
The article says that researchers analyzed the speech of a group of about 30 African penguins. Their findings indicate that two laws of language apply to the African penguin calls: Zipf's Law of Brevity and the Menzerath-Altmann Law. Zipf's Law is really extremely complicated and includes a lot of calculations that I do not fully understand as an SIS student, but the basic point is that the sounds that humans (or apparently penguins too) tend to make most often tend to be short in nature. Menzerath-Altmann's law is much less complicated, and it states that the longer the word, the more likely it is to be broken up into multiple short syllables.
The African penguins are the first non-primates that have been shown to adhere to these two linguistic laws, and this changes our view of what language even is. Zipf's law was originally based off of written language, and it was thought that the law only applied to humans, however, we are seeing that that's simply not the case. This makes the case for Zipf's law applying to all animals, which basically means that natural selection and natural pressures force animals to condense information so that we can convey the largest amount of information in the shortest amount of time.
This is really awesome to me because I want to know what the penguins are talking about. Whether they're sharing some juicy penguin gossip or their discussing their planned coup to take over the zoo, it'd be cool to know what they're squawking about. All jokes aside, these findings show us that human language may not be as special as we once thought.
Is this really all that surprising though? I have to say that now that I think of it, my cat makes a select variety of noises, and she repeats them, often in the same or similar tones corresponding to what she wants, and sometimes she makes multiple meows in quick succession. She always uses the same, distinct meow to beg for more food, and a different meow to ask to go outside, and yet a different one to show affection. Maybe I'll have to do some research on my cat to make sure that she doesn't abide by Zipf's Law of Brevity.
The article says that researchers analyzed the speech of a group of about 30 African penguins. Their findings indicate that two laws of language apply to the African penguin calls: Zipf's Law of Brevity and the Menzerath-Altmann Law. Zipf's Law is really extremely complicated and includes a lot of calculations that I do not fully understand as an SIS student, but the basic point is that the sounds that humans (or apparently penguins too) tend to make most often tend to be short in nature. Menzerath-Altmann's law is much less complicated, and it states that the longer the word, the more likely it is to be broken up into multiple short syllables.
The African penguins are the first non-primates that have been shown to adhere to these two linguistic laws, and this changes our view of what language even is. Zipf's law was originally based off of written language, and it was thought that the law only applied to humans, however, we are seeing that that's simply not the case. This makes the case for Zipf's law applying to all animals, which basically means that natural selection and natural pressures force animals to condense information so that we can convey the largest amount of information in the shortest amount of time.
This is really awesome to me because I want to know what the penguins are talking about. Whether they're sharing some juicy penguin gossip or their discussing their planned coup to take over the zoo, it'd be cool to know what they're squawking about. All jokes aside, these findings show us that human language may not be as special as we once thought.
Is this really all that surprising though? I have to say that now that I think of it, my cat makes a select variety of noises, and she repeats them, often in the same or similar tones corresponding to what she wants, and sometimes she makes multiple meows in quick succession. She always uses the same, distinct meow to beg for more food, and a different meow to ask to go outside, and yet a different one to show affection. Maybe I'll have to do some research on my cat to make sure that she doesn't abide by Zipf's Law of Brevity.
This is fascinating! I love the topic, and the application of zipf's law. I like your writing style, it communicates your point effectively, while still being easy and fun to read. Were you referencing Penguins of Madagascar with the coup joke? I can't tell but it works either way. This is my favorite blog I've read!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting topic! As a kid, growing up I always wondered if my pets could communicate with each other or even just with other members of their species. However, I had never seriously considered it to be an actual possibility, and chalked up my thoughts to a child-like fantasy. Now, however, I am pleased that I have read your article because it confirms the suspicions I had growing up as a kid, but also intrigues me to look further into these two languages; Zipf's Law of Brevity and the Menzerath-Altmann Law, after class.
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