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What birds have to say about language

Nature Neuroscience volume 14, pages 947–948 (2011)Cite this article

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Controversy surrounds the suggestion that recursion is a uniquely human computational ability that enables language. A study now finds this ability in a songbird and takes steps toward a model system for syntactic competence.

Human language is an extreme specialization, and its evolutionary history remains shrouded in mystery. The animal kingdom is replete with specializations, and these are appropriately studied from an evolutionary and comparative perspective. This core principle of biological investigation has been more controversial, however, when considering that most human of abilities, language. Nevertheless, language requires competence in several domains, and animals may have more competence in some of these than has previously been appreciated1. A study by Abe and Watanabe2 investigates an important aspect of our language ability, syntax, including the putative 'uniquely human' ability of recursion. Their results demonstrate a broad syntactic competence in a songbird species, as well as the suitability of their approach to understanding complex behavior and its development. They also identify an important brain pathway underlying this syntactic competence, establishing a major new line of inquiry in the fledgling field of biolinguistics.

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Figure 1: A new form of nesting behavior in birds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tiffany C. Bloomfield and Daniel Margoliash are in the Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.,

    Tiffany C Bloomfield & Daniel Margoliash

  2. Daniel Margoliash is also in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.,

    Daniel Margoliash

  3. Timothy Q. Gentner is in the Department of Psychology, and The Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.,

    Timothy Q Gentner

Authors
  1. Tiffany C Bloomfield
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  2. Timothy Q Gentner
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  3. Daniel Margoliash
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Correspondence to Daniel Margoliash.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bloomfield, T., Gentner, T. & Margoliash, D. What birds have to say about language. Nat Neurosci 14, 947–948 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2884

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