Differences in human and animal communication

Communication is very important in life it is funny to imagine how life would be minus communication. De facto, language was initially referred to as part of the body language was coming from Latin word lingua to mean tongue. Verbal communication is said to be a situation for the existence of a human community. On the other hand, other animals communicate as well. For instance, a dog pet will inform you when it feels hungry, bees dance to notify others where they can find honey, chimpanzee understands the sign language, and ants use sounds and pheromones to show distress or social status. Our communication may involve the present, past or future events, and may comprise relationships and abstract ideas. Many animals lack the anatomical structure required for spoken language, and different animal species do not seem to have the ability for processing symbolic data.

Nevertheless, animals depend on body expression, little vocal calls, and scent for expression. As a result, animal language is often in the present tense and involves instant real-world data like food, habitat, food, and availability to mate. Many primates, such as chimpanzees and gorillas have learned the American sign language, and they have resultantly illustrated the primary grasp of sign language. In two years' time, the baby will produce human sounds while the puppy will still be unable to provide any sound. Additionally, if we refer to the jungle book, Mowgli grew up in the animal habitat, and he inherits animal communication system. Because human language has arbitrariness, it is dictated by the geographical location of a place, its social, cultural and natural environment.

The linguistic sign of a particular object might vary from one geographic place to another. For example, in Spain a dog is referred to as ‘perro,' Japanese called a dog ‘inee’ and Russians call it ‘sobaka. In the animal world, the arrangement of language into different arrays and the ability to discuss objects and occasions are very rare. No animal language has both the characteristics. As human talk, we produce sounds using the organs of speech, which is not a common gift of nature. There are no any other species a part of monkeys, and apes can produce sounds via the organs of speech. The duality of patterning: Different sounds, referred to phonemes are said to be arbitrary and have no meaning.

Human organizes and reorganizes words, phrases, phonemes, and morphemes in a manner that will express several ideas. Also called open0endedness of language. Whereas animal language is a closed system, therefore animals cannot produce other signals to express novel experience and events. In human language, new words can easily be invented. However, animals have to evolve so that their signs can be altered. Man can as well learn other languages through interaction with people of a different culture. Whereas animal language lacks this capacity and their communication system is the same across cultures. Animal communication ability is biologically transferred; therefore, they are unable to learn different languages. Human communication is a symbolic system. The words or signs in language lacks the inherent relationship to what they mean or signify; this is why a particular object can have several names in various languages.

According to the scientist Vajda, all communication systems has units of form that have specific meanings, linguistically known as signs. In most of the time word is used as a sign of human communication. Also, animals use the sign in their communication, but their signs take a different form, according to the species. Foxes have about twenty different ways of vocalization. Electric eels make use of electrical impulse system to communicate with one another. Furthermore, the cries by the monkeys confirm the ability to differentiate the kinds of alarm sounds; therefore this evokes various reactions from other monkeys. For example, how they cry on seeing a snake make other monkeys to wake up and start scanning the grass. When a leopard cries, they all climb up to the trees.

The first monkey to hear will only make one call and use a given alarm cry properly, thus using selection in communication is also observed in the human communication system. Even though many human communications through odor is almost imperceptible, as compared to human communication. The ease experienced while teaching animals to communicate is attributed to the fact that we share several methods of communications with animals. Nevertheless, it requires much effort for both the animals and human to effectively understand the meaning behind certain expressions. For example, human practice handshake when meeting a new friend, however, dogs have a different kind of handshake, they smell the behind of the other dog. Even though these approaches may seem distinct, in the real sense they are all the methods of introduction to another person and greeting them.

There are several similarities that could be seen between human and animals in their everyday interaction. For instance, blind kids smile at the same stage of growth as those who can see, and this is a reflex that brings about bonding between the baby and the mother. Also, there exist certain similarities in hand gestures. Chimpanzees demonstrate by open hand on seeing something attractive, especially food. The same gesture is used by humans while requesting or receiving something from another person. Honeybees show similarities with human communications since they have different types of messages just as the same as human language.