Although human language sounds very different from birdsongs, researchers have found surprising similarities when they take a closer look at how other communicating animals structure their sounds.

While observing a Bengalese finch father teaching his chick the species’ famous and complex songs, scientists from Teikyo University in Japan matched the mathematical formula the birds naturally use to organize their songs to patterns found in human speech.

As the researchers pointed out in their study, published in Science Advances, this type of patterning makes complex communication easier to learn and is typically passed down over generations. Besides seeing it in birds, the researchers found the same communication structure in humpback whales.

“We have become used to the idea that language is unique in the natural world,” said the study lead, Simon Kirby of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, in a press statement. “But by using insights from how babies learn language we’ve been able to take a closer look at birdsong, and have discovered a surprising commonality between these species separated by more than 300 million years of evolution.”

Bird Songs Show Similar Patterns to How Human Words Are Used

The study, a combined effort by several international research organizations, applied knowledge of how human babies pick up language to song data recorded from Japanese Bengalese finches, known for their exceptional parenting skills and complex song structure.

The researchers collected data from several developmental stages as the birds learned how to communicate from their parents and peers. To the scientists’ surprise, they discovered that the notes the birds sang came in coherent sequences following distinct patterns, much like words are used in human language.

“I have studied Bengalese finch song for many years and thought I knew it rather well,” said study co-author Kazuo Okanoya from the Advanced Comprehensive Research Institute at Teikyo University in the release. “It was therefore a pleasant surprise to discover […] that it shares yet another property with whale song and human language: frequently used chunks of syllables tend to be shorter, while less frequently used chunks tend to be longer — a pattern known as Zipf’s law.”

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Language May Not Be Uniquely Human

While communication is common in the animal kingdom, language as a highly sophisticated structured system has typically been attributed to humans. But when the scientists found that young songbirds could produce songs that contained statistical patterns, they suggested that traits we consider unique to language may not be exclusively human.

Instead, language may be more universal and closely connected to evolution. Songbirds and humpback whales alike transmit their specific communication processes culturally and across generations, refining them over time to make learning their “language” as easy as possible.

“For me, it is really exciting to see how ideas from child language learning can reveal new insights about language evolution and animal communication," said study co-author Inbal Arnon, professor at the University of Edinburgh and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the release.

Communication Evolves Culturally

Previous research points to similar patterns in humpback whale songs, supporting the scientists’ theory that the fundamentals of sophisticated communication don’t necessarily depend on the abilities of a species itself, but rather on the role communication and transgenerational learning play within the species.

That adult birds teach their young songs isn’t new to biologists, but discovering how they organize their songs and how chicks pick them up in ways so similar to humans is a significant step toward expanding our understanding of language.

“We humans are the only species with language, but we share the planet with several others who also have culturally evolving communication,” said Kirby, “and this may make us more similar to one another than we previously thought.”

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• This article references information from a study published in Science Advances:Language-like statistical structure arises in learned signaling: evidence from birdsong