Birds that communicate like humans

Scientists have discovered the first bird species that can string sounds together to communicate, opening up future research into the evolution of human communication.

The small babbler knows how to string sounds together to communicate. Photo: Mirro Daily

Fox News reported on July 2 that a research team discovered that a small Australian babbler, scientifically named Pomatostomus ruficeps, has the ability to string together sounds to convey information.

The researchers listened to their sounds. These babblers don't sing, but instead make "discrete calls, composed of small, distinct-pitched individual sounds," says Sabrina Engesser, lead author of the study.

Two sounds identified as "A" and "B" are repeated continuously. For example, they use "AB" to announce their location to others while flying (the announced birds will look up at the sky); or "BAB" is used to call baby birds to feeding time (the baby birds will look into the nest).

"Although the calls are structurally very similar, they are used in completely different contexts, and the individuals who hear them are able to understand them," explains team member Simon Townsend, an expert at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Overall, it's a basic communication model, says Dr. Andy Russell, of the University of Exeter in the UK. He says it's easier to swap existing sounds than to create new ones.

Researchers believe that the "B" sound in the sound sequence helps differentiate the meaning of the calls. In other words, it's like the letter "C" makes the difference between "CAT" and "AT" in English.

Such distinguishing elements are called phonemes, and this basic example “can help us understand the ways in which new information was transmitted in the evolution of human communication,” one expert says.

"It's very possible that our ancestors also began communicating using this monosyllabic structure," Russell concludes.

According to VnExpress