Elephant Names
Jun. 10th, 2024 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithElephants have names for each other like people do, new study shows
Wild African elephants address each other with name-like calls, a rare ability among nonhuman animals, according to a new study. Researchers used machine learning to confirm that elephant calls contained a name-like component identifying the intended recipient, a behavior they suspected based on observation. The study suggests elephants do not imitate the receiver's call to address one another but instead use arbitrary vocal labels like humans.
So now I'm wondering how much of the rest of elephant "calls" are actually language, or at least, proto-language. The ability to use abstracts is going from 0 to 1, it's the hardest step. And do they have names for anything other than elephants? It would not surprise me if they have names for a few of the biggest threats, like "lion" (big enough to eat a calf if it's not protected well enough); or in captivity, a favored human.
Wild African elephants address each other with name-like calls, a rare ability among nonhuman animals, according to a new study. Researchers used machine learning to confirm that elephant calls contained a name-like component identifying the intended recipient, a behavior they suspected based on observation. The study suggests elephants do not imitate the receiver's call to address one another but instead use arbitrary vocal labels like humans.
So now I'm wondering how much of the rest of elephant "calls" are actually language, or at least, proto-language. The ability to use abstracts is going from 0 to 1, it's the hardest step. And do they have names for anything other than elephants? It would not surprise me if they have names for a few of the biggest threats, like "lion" (big enough to eat a calf if it's not protected well enough); or in captivity, a favored human.
