There are many fictional and acclaimed stories of talking animals. These stories involve apes and chimpanzees possessing the unique human ability to communicate verbally. Turning to empirical research instead of stories, human communicative ability was compared to the animal’s one in several attempts. Before embarking on the discussion of human and animal speech properties, one has to, first, mention the two different signals in language: informative & communicative. Informative signals represent the display of some verbal and non-verbal cues which inform people about one’s origins –through accent-, physical health –sneezing means one has cold- etc. These signals are unintentional. On the other hand, communicative signals are represented in the deliberate use of language to perform a certain action, e.g. making a request. Human language is clearly distinct from animal language. There are 5 features which characterise the distinction.Displacement: it is the speech property, which allows the speaker to talk about events in the past or future. Humans can even talk about things that do not exist. However, animals do not possess this quality. When a cat meows, it is aiming for something at the present moment; it is not narrating a story about its fight with another cat that took place the day before. Bees are said to possess displacement, but, to a limited extent. They can communicate the discovery of a new nectar source. They perform a dance –either round or horizontal- indicating the distance from the beehive and the direction to take. The limitation lies in their inability to move vertically, which makes their communication limited. Arbitrariness: it is the case where there is no ‘logical’ or ‘natural’ connection between the form and its meaning. The form ‘dog’ gives no proof that the described object is a four-legged mammal pet with a tail and a never-ending appetite. In the animal world, there is no clear evidence of possession of such property. Animals have a limited number of gestural and vocal signals which signify specific meanings. Productivity: “humans are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances by manipulating their linguistic resources to describe new objects or situations” (Yule G. 1985, p. 10). This property is called creativity (productivity). The communication systems of animals do not seem to possess such quality. Productivity stems from the fact that the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite. Cultural Transmission: inheriting one’s ancestors’ physical features does not ensure speaking the same language. Language is acquired in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes. An infant born to an Algerian family, but, who is raised in Australia will certainly speak English, with an Australian accent. On the other hand, a kitten will meow in the same way regardless of the geographical region it will reside in. “This process whereby a language is passed on from one generation to the next is described as cultural transmission” (ibid, p. 11). It is clear that humans are born with some kind of predisposition to acquire language in a general sense. However, we are not born with the ability to produce utterances in a specific language, such as English. We acquire our first language as children in a culture. Duality: there are two levels/ layers to human language. This property is called ‘double articulation’ (duality). The first level is represented in the production of individual sounds, like /n/, /b/, and /i/. These sounds are considered meaningless, because they are individual. In order to give such sounds meaning, one needs to combine them together ,i.e. step into the second level. Therefore, this gives one ‘bin’ or ‘nib’. So, at one level, we have distinct sounds, and, at another level, we have distinct meanings. This duality of levels is, in fact, one of the most economical features of human language, because, with a limited set of discrete sounds, one is capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations (words), which are distinct in meaning. For animals, each sound signal seems to be fixed, i.e. it cannot be broken down into separate parts. If a dog produces ‘woof’, it cannot be detached into w+oo+f. Based on a famous theory of evolution, scientists have tried to teach monkeys –which are believed to be humans’ ancestors- to speak oral or signal language. From working with Gua, Washoe, Sara, or even Lana, none of those chimpanzees could learn language humans do, although –they claim- some of them could learn some words and signals. Evidently, the aforementioned 5 language properties are idiosyncratic to man.
