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Lara Cowell

Japanese Vocabulary - Animal Sounds | PuniPuniJapan - 0 views

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    Animal sounds in Japanese are known as 動物の声 (どうぶつのこえ - dōbutsu no koe) - literally "animals' voices." Animal sounds in Japanese are usually one sound that is repeated twice, but are sometimes only said once. Sometimes there are multiple ways to say one animal sound. Check out this page for a listing: has hiragana+the transliteration of the sound in English.
Lara Cowell

22 Chinese Animal Sounds You've Gotta Try Saying - 0 views

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    Critter Challenge: How Many Animal Sounds Can You Make in Chinese? Do you know how to say "woof" in Chinese? Learn how to bark, squeak, meow, roar and hee-haw instead! This page provides the word for 22 kinds of animals, along with the particular sounds they make. Each item first lists the animal sound in Chinese, followed by the English name of the animal who makes that sound.
Ryan Catalani

Derek Abbott's Animal Noise Page - 3 views

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    "In different languages what do we say to mimic animal sounds?" 17 languages, from Danish to Urdu, with lots of animals.
emilydaehler24

How AI is decoding the animal kingdom - 0 views

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    This article writes about the complexities of animal communication and how elephants are able to use low frequency sounds to stay in touch amongst each other. Generative artificial intelligence is able to help humans generate an algorithm that is capable of detecting animal calls, grumbles, grunts, squeaks etc and translate it into a language that humans are comfortable interpreting.
daralynwen19

Yes, We Can Communicate with Animals - Scientific American Blog Network - 3 views

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    This article discusses human communication with other animals. It states that animals won't be able to remember words like "bacteria" or "economy" because they don't have the brain capacity to understand those words. However, if you tell a dog to "sit", the dog is able to differentiate the sound of that particular word from other verbal signals, and can carry out the action. This is how learning words works. The article also discusses IQ and explains that human brains have been genetically modified for communication, and the size of our brains is also much bigger than expected in animals of the same size.
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    The article also underscores a quality that differentiates human language from other animal communication: grammatical orderliness. Human languages have word categories such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and so on. We can modify word order and word endings to create different tenses so that we can describe events from the past or imaginary ones from the future. This grammatical complexity emerges quite early in child development, beginning in the second year of life and exploding with full force in the third year of life. No nonhuman animal to date has demonstrated the ability to construct sentences with the level of grammatical complexity typical of a three-year-old human child.
haileysonson17

Why French pigs say groin, Japanese bees say boon and American frogs say ribbit - 1 views

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    This article highlights the different sounds animals make in different languages. Why can't animal sounds be something that is universal? As of right now there is no formal research done on this topic, but one possibility could be cultural influences on animal sounds, or that people interpret a sound based on their country's phonetic alphabet.
Lara Cowell

Onomatopoeia: The origin of language? - Filthy Monkey Men - 2 views

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    Almost every language on the planet includes words that sound like the things they describe. Crash, yawn, glug… speech is just full of these onomatopoeias. And because they have their root in real things they're often easy to identify. Even a non-native speaker might recognise the Hindi "achhee" (a sneeze) or the Indonesian "gluk" (glug). Because these onomatopoeias are so widely encountered, easy to pick up, and convey information might they be the first form of language? That's the argument presented in a recent paper published in Animal Cognition. It points out that our ancestors would have begun encountering more and more noises that we could repeat. Tool use/ manufacture in particular, with its smashes and crashes, would be a prime source of onomatopoeias. Mimicking these sounds could have allowed early humans to "talk" about the objects; describing goals, methods, and objects. Might handing someone a rock and going "smash" been a way to ask them to make a tool? Perhaps different noises could even refer to different tools. Humans are good at extracting information from mimicked sounds. These sounds also trigger "mirror neurons" - parts of the brain that fire when we observe other people doing something - allowing us to repeat those actions. Seeing someone hold a rock a certain way and saying "smash" could have helped our ancestors teach the proper way to smash. But the biggest benefit would be the fact that you can communicate about these objects without seeing them. Having a sound for a tool would allow you to ask someone for it, even if they didn't have it on them. Given these advantages, it's easy to imagine how evolution would have favoured people who mimicked noises. Over time, this would have driven the development of more and more complex communication; until language as we recognise it emerged. Following this narrative, you can see (or maybe hear) how an a human ancestor with almost no language capability gradual
Javen Alania

A Human Language Gene Changes the Sound of Mouse Squeaks - 0 views

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    People have a deep desire to communicate with animals, as is evident from the way they converse with their dogs, enjoy myths about talking animals or devote lifetimes to teaching chimpanzees how to speak. A delicate, if tiny, step has now been taken toward the real thing: the creation of a mouse with a human gene for language.
deborahwen17

Monkeys Could Talk, but They Don't Have the Brains for It - The New York Times - 0 views

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    This article is pretty self-explanatory based on the article - it talks about how monkeys' vocal cords and bodies are physiologically able to talk and make distinct sounds. However, monkeys lack the brain circuits used by humans to learn sounds, and the special nerve sets humans use to control the shape of our vocal tracts.
Lara Cowell

Some Vocal-Mimicking Animals, Particularly Parrots, Can Move To A Musical Beat - 3 views

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    Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren't the only ones who can groove to a beat - some other species can dance, too. The capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species with the capacity for vocal mimicry, that is, copying sound, seem capable of beat induction, the ability to discern the beat in music. Beat induction also enables such actions as clapping, making music together and dancing to a rhythm. The data suggests that some of the brain mechanisms needed for human dance may have originally evolved to allow us to imitate sound.
Lara Cowell

Babies may practice crying months before they're born - 0 views

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    When a human baby is born, its first cry is a normal sign of good health. Having never taken a breath before, the baby signals its first inhalation and exhalation-in the form of a screech. How do babies know to create a sound they've never made before? And is their first yelp truly the start of speech development? As it turns out, human babies may be practicing how to cry long before they ever make a sound. That is, if they're anything like marmosets, humans' primate cousins. A study of marmosets by Daniel Takahashi, a co-author of the study and an animal behaviorist at the Brain Institute at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil. shows fetal monkeys practicing crying in the womb. Takahashi notes, "marmosets are monkeys that we know vocalize a lot, and they share a lot of features with humans." For instance, both male and female parents raise their offspring together, and unlike other primates, marmoset babies are relatively helpless when they're born, like human infants. Takahashi says the central finding will help illuminate when speech development begins, and that studying pre-birth-rather than the moment of birth-may help identify speech or motor development problems earlier. "There are a lot of things going on in the womb that might be relevant to what's going on afterwards," he says.
Lara Cowell

Chirps, whistles, clicks: Do any animals have a true 'language'? - 4 views

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    As far as we know, humans are still the only ones with language. But what separates language from communication? Why can't we assume that whales, with their elaborate songs, are simply speaking "whale-ese"? To be considered a true language, there are a few elements that are usually considered to be essential, says Kershenbaum. For one, it must be learned rather than instinctive - both whales and birds have this piece covered. For instance, killer whale calves learn a repertoire of calls from their mothers, and the sounds gradually evolve from erratic screams to adult-like pulsed calls and whistles. What holds whales and other animals back from language is that there is a limit to what they can express. There are only so many calls that each may convey different emotions, but only we have an unlimited ability to express abstract ideas.
Lara Cowell

Did My Cat Just Hit On Me? An Adventure in Pet Translation - 0 views

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    The urge to converse with animals is age-old, long predating the time when smartphones became our best friends. A new app, is the product of a growing interest in enlisting additional intelligences - machine-learning algorithms - to decode animal communication. The app detects and analyzes cat utterances in real-time, assigning each one a broadly defined "intent," such as happy, resting, hunting or "mating call." It then displays a conversational, plain English "translation" of whatever intent it detects. MeowTalk uses the sounds it collects to refine its algorithms and improve its performance, the founders said, and pet owners can provide in-the-moment feedback if the app gets it wrong. In 2021, MeowTalk researchers reported that the software could distinguish among nine intents with 90 percent accuracy overall. But the app was better at identifying some than others, not infrequently confusing "happy" and "pain," according to the results. Dogs could soon have their own day. Zoolingua, a start-up based in Arizona, is hoping to create an A.I.-powered dog translator that will analyze canine vocalizations and body language. Still, even sophisticated algorithms may miss critical real-world context and cues, said Alexandra Horowitz, an expert on dog cognition at Barnard College. For instance, much of canine behavior is driven by scent. "How is that going to be translated, when we don't know the extent of it ourselves?" Dr. Horowitz said in an email.
Ryan Catalani

Bzzzpeek - 3 views

shared by Ryan Catalani on 14 Oct 11 - Cached
Lisa Stewart liked it
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    "bzzzpeek is presenting a collection of 'onomatopoeia' from around the world using sound recordings from native speakers imitating the sounds of mainly animals and vehicles"
Lara Cowell

The Fascinating World of Japanese Onomatopoeia | Nippon.com - 0 views

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    Japanese onomatopoeia is one of the language's most intriguing features. This article categorizes onomatopoetic words by sounds and states, animal noises, bewildering flexibility (e.g., "goro goro" can refer to the sound of thunder or a couch potato lazing around the house), and pain.
Parker Tuttle

A Human Language Gene Changes the Sound of Mouse Squeaks - NYTimes.com - 5 views

  • creation of a mouse with a human gene for languag
  • genetically engineered a strain of mice whose FOXP2 gene has been swapped out for the human version
  • humanized baby mice, when isolated, made whistles that had a slightly lower pitch, among other differences
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • gene does seem to have a great effect on pathways of neural development in mice
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    The importance of FOXP2, and how it affects language.
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    People have a deep desire to communicate with animals, as is evident from the way they converse with their dogs, enjoy myths about talking animals or devote lifetimes to teaching chimpanzees how to speak. A delicate, if tiny, step has now been taken toward the real thing: the creation of a mouse with a human gene for language.
Lisa Stewart

Book review: I Is an Other - WSJ.com - 1 views

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    Dr. Geary explains how metaphors are used to veil the true meaning of what one is trying to say in hopes to either deceive a group or to promote good feelings among a population. Consider his examples of Bush's "Axis of Evil" and Obama's desire to extend a warm hand to countries across the globe. This book sounds much like Steven Pinker's lecture for the RSA Animate video, "Language as a Window into Human Nature", and both the video and book aren't too different; both simply look at the same topic in different ways (innuendo vs. metaphor - though these hardly seem different if one were to really think about it). Link to Pinker's RSA Animate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU
tainoathompson16

A Human Language Gene Changes the Sound of Mouse Squeaks - 0 views

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    Scientists have implemented the human gene deemed responsible for our ability to communicate into a strain of mice. This could be the first step towards having talking animals someday, and it also allows us to understand more about how genetics affect language.
deborahwen17

Do dolphins have a spoken language? - CNN.com - 0 views

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    New research suggests that dolphins may have a spoken language of their own; in a recent study by Russian researchers two dolphins communicated using a series of whistles and clicks (called pulses), and didn't ever interrupt each other. They also noted that the pulses sounded like sentences. With new recording technologies, the researchers were able to separate potential words from filler clicks, and the researchers hope to one day build a machine that will allow humans and dolphins to communicate.
trentnagamine23

Technology's impact on childhood brain, language development | WRVO Public Media - 0 views

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    Dr. Michael Rich is the director of the Center on Media and Child Health and the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders. Rich notes some major takeaways: 1.Babies' brains are elastic: the first three years of life are critical for both language and overall brain development. Unlike other animals, humans are born with embryonic brains, rendering babies helpless and in need of caregivers while also providing a developmental advantage: allowing us to build our brains in response to the challenges and stimuli of the environment we're in," In the first three years of life, the brain triples in volume due to synaptic connections, therefore stimuli and challenges babies receive within that time frame help babies build creative, flexible and resilient brains. 2. Face to face interaction is valuable. 3. It's not just about screen time duration, but the type of content being consumed. For example, young children can interact meaningfully via Facetime, if they've previously interacted with that person. However, screens as a distraction for kids in lieu of human interaction= not good.
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    This article talks about how screen time affects babies language development. The first nine months of a baby's life are important for a child to understand sounds and how they should be used. They are able to understand language much earlier than they actually start talking. Many doctors and scientists encourage parents to communicate with their babies as soon as possible to develop language. Recent studies found that babies that spent more time in front of a screen than talking suffered in language development. I found it interesting that not all screen time is necessarily bad for a child's language development. For example, FaceTime can be beneficially for children because they are interacting in a meaningful way but using screens as a distraction for kids can be harmful.
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