Cockatiel words

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-od7i5rrEBw[/youtube]

I whistle on this video in reply to Pavi mainly, but if you have the volume up you can hear them occasionally speak their own language. I shot this today on my cell phone camera.

I'm not necessarily sure I would say "language" (my training in linguistics leaves me very stingy with that term), but most certainly there is a degree of communication among them. One has only to observe the difference in sounds they employ to see that much.

But then, I observe only isolated cockatiels. That there is an almost "cultural" quality to the language of birds also seems likely to me, as I remember my deer parakeet learning to make the sounds of love birds, and cockatiels, while not sounding much like a parakeet at all.

Bird communication is fascinating. The capacity for symbolic thought in the late Alex the African Grey is definitely an indicator that their abilities should not be underestimated.

What would the definition of language be then? I have read General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure and other authors on linguistics. One book that I'm reading now seems to use argument by bad example and appeal to ignorance topped of by argument by definition to deny bird speech the title of "language." I can try to keep making recordings when they're talkative though.

I had a weird dream last night that I guess could be related. Do you have a degree in linguistics? What can you tell me about tonal languages?

I don't have a degree in linguistics (I jumped ship to maths when I got tired of Chomskyans), but in general language often involves a very highly developed concept of syntax. Still though, I agree it's mostly just a matter of definitions, and too often linguists just sit there and parrot (heh heh) their particular definition of "language" as being relevant to these kinds of discussions even when it diverges quite strongly from the common notion. One of their irritating habits that drove me out of the field. Sometimes linguists cross the line deep into willful ignorance (some of my readings on Kanzi the bonobo have lead me to conclude that saying that his apparent communicative abilities are nothing but simple conditioning - as many linguists assert - is patently ridiculous). Perhaps I should be more cautious in being stingy with the word "language" then eh?

As for tonal languages, I'm not much experienced, but what are you looking for?

I was just wondering how tone would determine a word's meaning in a tonal language. When Pavi says "Tser-wee!" in an excited tone it is usually when she wants to sit on my shoulder or share my food. When she says "Tser-wee!" in an irritated tone she usually means, "leave me alone" or something to that effect. Wee-Ough can mean many things, but when used in a distressed tone it either means "come to me" or "here I am"; it is part of the retrieval-echo-call of "wee-ough! wee-ough! wee-ough! Tser-wee!" that Caso uses when he's separated out-of-sight from Patty. Also they have other words like "Whurp?" which seems to mean "why" or "What is going on". Wee-ough-wheat! also seems to mean something for both budgies and cockatiels although I'm not sure what.

Watch the very last part of this where Charlie says "Wee-ough-wheat" and the human responds "wheat-whoo"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUy6-1pTqhw&feature=related[/youtube]

What I would like to study some day is how much of the language is genetic and how much is learned.

In a tonal language, as defined, the tone has an arbitrary relationship to the semantic meaning of a word in much the same way as the consonants or vowels do.
For example, in Mandarin:

Languages that aren't tonal, in the defined sense of the word, such as English, do still encode a large quantity of information in the tone of words and phrases. Obvious example, "Going out?" and "Going out." have different meanings because of the tone and this needs to be shown by the question mark, whereas some languages may make the distinction on the basis of adding a word at the end.