【TED】动物有语言吗？

To answer that question, we can look at four specific qualities that are often associated with language: discreteness, grammar, productivity, and displacement.

为了回答这个问题，我们来看一下跟语言相关的4个特质：分离性、语法性、创造性和时空性。

Discreteness means that there is a set of individual units, such as sounds or words, that can be combined to communicate new ideas, like a set of refrigerator poetry magnets you can rearrange to create different phrases.

分离性是指一组独立单元比如声音或者词语，能够被组合在一起传达新的想法。就像贴在冰箱门上的诗词磁条可以通过重组来创建不同的词汇。

Grammar provides a system of rules that tells you how to combine those individual units.

语法性提供了一套规则，让你知道如何组合那些独立单元。

Productivity is the ability to use language to create an infinite number of messages.

创造性是运用语言来创造无限量信息的能力。

And displacement is the ability to talk about things that aren't right in front of you, such as past, future, or fictional events.

时空性是谈论那些不在眼前的事物，比如过去，未来或者虚构事件。

So, does animal communication exhibit any of these qualities?

那么，动物交流时会展现出其中的任何特质吗？

For crabs and cuttlefish, the answer is no.

就螃蟹和乌贼而言，答案是不会。

They don't combine their signals in creative ways.

它们不会以创新的方式来衔接这些信号。

Those signals also don't have to be in a grammatical order, and they only communicate current conditions, like, "I am healthy," or "I am poisonous."

那些信号没有必要按照语法的顺序排列，它们只交流现状，比如，“我很健康”，或者“我有毒”。

But some animals actually do display some of these properties.

但有一些动物们会展现出这些特性。

Bees use the moves, angle, duration, and intensity of their waggle dance to describe the location and richness of a food source.

蜜蜂们在舞蹈中通过摇摆舞的位置变动、角度、时长和强度来描述食物源的位置和丰富程度。

That source is outside the hive, so they exhibit the property of displacement.

食物源位于蜂巢之外，所以它们展现出了时空性。

They share that language trait with prairie dogs, which live in towns of thousands, and are hunted by coyotes, hawks, badgers, snakes, and humans.

它们分享了跟土拨鼠一样的语言特征，土拨鼠住在数千个城镇中，是土狼、老鹰、獾、蛇和人类的猎物。

Their alarms calls indicate the predator's size, shape, speed, and, even for human predators, what the person is wearing and if he's carrying a gun.

它们的警报展现了捕猎者的大小、体型、速度甚至包括人类狩猎者的穿着，以及是否带着枪。

Great apes, like chimps and gorillas, are great communicators, too.

类人猿，比如黑猩猩和大猩猩，也很善于交流。

Some have even learned a modified sign language.

甚至有一些学会了改进后的手语。

A chimpanzee named Washoe demonstrated discreteness by combining multiple signs into original phrases, like, "Please open. Hurry."

一只名叫华秀的黑猩猩，通过将不同手势转换成原始的词组，比如“快打开门”，展现了其分离性。

Coco, a female gorilla who understands more than 1000 signs, and around 2000 words of spoken English referred to a beloved kitten that had died.

Coco，一只能明白1000多种手势和大约2000个英语口语词汇的雌猩猩，提到了一只刚死去的可爱小花猫。

In doing so, she displayed displacement, though it's worth noting that the apes in both of these examples were using a human communication system, not one that appeared naturally in the wild.

她的这种表现显示出了时空性，但值得注意的是，类人猿在这两个案例中用的是人类的交流体系，并不是任何天然形成的特性。

There are many other examples of sophisticated animal communication, such as in dolphins, which use whistles to identify age, location, names, and gender.

动物们还有很多复杂交流的案例，比如海豚通过吹口哨来辨别年龄、位置、姓名和性别。

They can also understand some grammar in a gestural language researchers use to communicate with them.

它们也懂一些研究人员用来与之交流的语法。

However, grammar is not seen in the dolphin's natural communication.

然而，在海豚的自然交流中是不存在语法的。

While these communication systems may have some of the qualities of language we've identified, none display all four.

虽然这些交流体系会体现出一些我们所知的语言特性，但并不包含全部四个。

Even Washoe and Coco's impressive abilities are still outpaced by the language skills of most three-year-old humans.

即便华秀和Coco拥有一流的语言能力，也不如大多数3岁孩子的语言技巧。

And animals' topics of conversation are usually limited.

动物们对话的内容通常都很有限。

Bees talk about food, prairie dogs talk about predators, and crabs talk about themselves.