get and get: Talking Animals

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Talking Animals

A talking animal or speaking animal refers to any form of non-human animal which can produce sounds (or gestures) resembling those of a human language. Many species or groups of animals have arguably developed a language, even through vocal communication between its members, or interspecies, with an understanding of what they are communicating. As well, studies in animal cognition have been arguably successful in teaching some animals a language, such as sign language with Koko the gorilla. For these reasons, this phenomenon is widely discussed and investigated, while skeptics consider the results to be a form of mimicry, not true communication.
A very similar perspective of study is talking animals in fiction.

The term may have a nearly literal meaning, by referring to animals which can imitate human speech, though not necessarily possessing an understanding of what they may be mimicking. The most common example of this would be parrots, many of which repeat many things nonsensically through exposure. It is an anthropomorphism to call this human speech, as it has no semantic grounding.

Clever Hans was a horse that was claimed to have been able to perform arithmetic and other intellectual tasks. After formal investigation in 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers. The horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem, with the trainer unaware that he was providing such cues.

On formality of animal language

A "formal language" requires a communication with a syntax as well as semantics. It is not simply sufficient for one to communicate information, or even use symbology to communicate ideas. It has yet to be demonstrated that any animal species has developed a formal language, or been able to learn a formal language.
Researchers have attempted to teach great apes (Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and Bonobos) spoken language with poor results, and sign language with significantly better results. However, even the best communicating great ape has shown an inability to grasp the idea of syntax and grammar, instead communicating at best at the same level as a pidgin language in Humans. They are expressive and communicative, but lack the formality that remains such a rarity in human speech.

Reported cases by species

Birds

Research done by Dr. Irene Pepperberg strongly suggests that parrots are capable of speaking in context and with intentional meaning. Pepperberg's star pupil, Alex the African Grey Parrot, had demonstrated the ability to assemble words out of letters—in other words, to read and spell.

Dogs

Odie, the talking pug that will say a convincing "I love you" on demand has made appearances on Letterman and on The Montel Show and on AOL's "T.V. top 5".

Paranormal researcher Charles Fort wrote in his book Wild Talents (1932) of several alleged cases of dogs that could speak English. Fort took the stories from contemporary newspaper counts, but they are unverifiable at this late date.

Internet phenomenon, Mishka the talking Husky, has been trained to say certain phrases, most notably "I love you", and has videos of her saying phrases like "Hello", "NOOOOO", and also has learned to sing through the help of an iPad.

Cats

A talking cat called Cingene (Gypsy) made Turkish television news on March 20, 1993. The two year old black cat managed to say at least seven words on television.^[5]

A more recent Internet phenomenon is the case of a cat who was videotaped speaking recognizable human words and phrases such as "Oh my dog," "Oh Don piano", and "All the live long day." Footage of this cat, nicknamed "Oh Long Johnson" from one of the phrases spoken, was featured on America's Funniest Home Videos in 1998, and a longer version of the clip (which revealed the animal was speaking to another cat) was later aired in the UK. Clips from this video are prevalent on YouTube.

Tiggy the talking cat at home

Another recent Internet phenomenon is the cat named Tiggy. Tiggy the Talking Cat (1990 - June 23rd 2010) was a unique cat who made a unique talking like noise. Tiggy is from Grimsby, England and was born in 1990; she died on Wednesday 23rd June 2010 at the age of 20.

Tiggy started making this strange noise at around the age of 8 and would only make it when she was alone and out of sight. After years of hearing the noise and never seeing it being made, in May 2007 out of curiosity as to what Tiggy looked like when making this noise (and also to show it to friends who didn’t believe the cat could talk) her owners set up a video camera and left it on record in a spot where Tiggy regularly "spoke", eventually footage was captured of Tiggy sitting in the hallway making the noise which sounded like "Hello" four times. This video was uploaded to youtube and was the first ever Tiggy video. In the first Tiggy video she was quite a distance from the camera so the owners tried again, the second attempt was a great success with Tiggy walking up to the camera and talking for around 20 seconds. The video captured the second time was also uploaded to YouTube along with the first video and it became a huge hit acquiring millions of views on YouTube turning Tiggy into an internet celebrity. A further video was then filmed in the same house and uploaded to Youtube in June, no more videos of tiggy appeared on YouTube until August 2009 when videos of Tiggy playing and talking were uploaded. Footage of Tiggy has made its way on to several TV Shows in Both the USA and the U.K. Tiggy's first T.V appearance was in the U.K. on channel 4's Richard and Judy show during the "funny five" segment of the show which consisted of 5 funny videos from the internet being nominated by a different celebrity guest each week, viewers then voted for their favorite online. Tiggy won the Funny Five competition for the 2007 series of the show and the crew visited Tiggy in her home and presented her with a plaque signed by presenters Richard and Judy, it was Tiggys appearance on this show which helped to make her popularity on YouTube so large with her being featured on the main YouTube page due to the huge amount of views the TV appearances caused. Tiggy has then gone on to appear on a number of shows all over the world including: CBBC's Chute, BBC's Lenny Henry.tv, America's County Fried Home Videos, The Ellen DeGeneres and various shows on Animal Planet.

Other

Hoover, a harbor seal that would vocally repeat common phrases he heard around his exhibit at the New England Aquarium, including his name. He appeared in publications like Reader's Digest and The New Yorker and television programs like Good Morning America.

Gef the talking mongoose was an alleged talking animal who inhabited a small house on the Isle of Man, off the coast of Great Britain. Opinion is divided on whether Gef was a poltergeist, a strange animal or cryptid, a hoax, or something else. Most doubt the case happened at all as told.

Batyr (1969–1993), an elephant from Kazakhstan, was widely published as having a vocabulary of more than 20 phrases. Recordings of Batyr saying "Batyr is good","Batyr is hungry" and using words such as "drink" and "give" was played on Kazakh state radio in 1980.