An eye opener

[Lise Menn]

Yuri, some of the most extensive and best-documented work has been  
done by Irene Pepperberg. Try some of the links on this page:

http://www.google.com/search?q=irene+pepperberg+alex&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

On Oct 26, 2010, at 1:00 PM, john at research.haifa.ac.il wrote:

> Shannon recently sent an article in which it was argued that (IIRC)  
> birds, bats,
> elephants, dolphins, and whales all have more developed communicative
> vocalizations than primates and speculated on what in the brain this  
> is
> associated with.
> John
>
>
>
>
> Quoting Yuri Tambovtsev <yutamb at mail.ru>:
>
>> Dear Aya, it is an eye opener. Do you really mean that your parrot  
>> can speak
>> better than your primate? I mean both better sounds and better  
>> phrases? Why
>> so? Does it mean that birds with their limited brain can learn to  
>> speak? You
>> wrote that your parrot spoke proper words in proper situations. Is  
>> that true?
>> The speech apparatus and the mind of birds is quite different from  
>> that of
>> the primate. I wonder how our Funknet colleagues can explain it?  
>> The books
>> and articles I read say that parrots and other birds just immitate  
>> the sounds
>> without understanding them. What you say is a novelty. As you know  
>> I study
>> different sounds human beings use in different languages. I was  
>> always
>> surprised why different people all over the world produce more or  
>> less the
>> same sounds in their speech chains. Did you notice that your parrot  
>> produced
>> human sounds equally well? Be well, Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk,  
>> Russia
>>
>
>
>
>
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Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
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Professor Emerita of Linguistics
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University of  Colorado

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