The language that prairie dogs speak is very interesting. I believe that prairie dogs language has many aspects that human language has, but they don’t possess all of the same aspects. I don’t believe prairie dogs language uses displacement, prevarication, or reflectiveness. And I am unsure if the possess the ability to be creative with their language. However, I also don’t think enough is known about the prairie dogs language to be completely sure they aren’t able to lie or refer to other places or times they aren’t currently in, or comment on their own language. Based on what is known, I think they could be creative with their language. If we could find out what their ‘chatters’ are about or why the jump and use the ‘yippee’ call, then I
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Other species of prairie dogs cannot understand other species. The calls one species uses is unique to them, this is arbitrariness. Just like English and French are different, so are different species of prairie dogs. Because the prairie dogs use their high pitched calls to refer to predators, they are using semanticity by using language to refer to real objects. And because they can make up new calls when presented with new object, they have the learnability aspect of language as well as specialization. This is because their calls are specialized for the type of predator or object. However, the prairie dogs don’t just speak when predators are around. They also communicate when there aren’t any predators around. For example, when one prairie dog jumps up and make the ‘yippee’ call, another will respond. This happens even when there doesn’t seem to be any visual context as to why. This is why their language uses control, spontaneous usage, and turn taking. Their language is also cultural transmitted because new prairie dogs learn the calls for the predators and objects. The prairie dog language has phonemes similar to human’s vowels and consonants. These prairie dog phoneme and combines to describe objects, using nouns and adjectives. One call is equivalent to one human sentence. These phonemes are combined to make calls that describe an objects species, color, shape, and size. These are all aspects of discreteness, duality of patterning, and structure dependence (“Prairie
Other species of prairie dogs cannot understand other species. The calls one species uses is unique to them, this is arbitrariness. Just like English and French are different, so are different species of prairie dogs. Because the prairie dogs use their high pitched calls to refer to predators, they are using semanticity by using language to refer to real objects. And because they can make up new calls when presented with new object, they have the learnability aspect of language as well as specialization. This is because their calls are specialized for the type of predator or object. However, the prairie dogs don’t just speak when predators are around. They also communicate when there aren’t any predators around. For example, when one prairie dog jumps up and make the ‘yippee’ call, another will respond. This happens even when there doesn’t seem to be any visual context as to why. This is why their language uses control, spontaneous usage, and turn taking. Their language is also cultural transmitted because new prairie dogs learn the calls for the predators and objects. The prairie dog language has phonemes similar to human’s vowels and consonants. These prairie dog phoneme and combines to describe objects, using nouns and adjectives. One call is equivalent to one human sentence. These phonemes are combined to make calls that describe an objects species, color, shape, and size. These are all aspects of discreteness, duality of patterning, and structure dependence (“Prairie