Birdsong and Human Language

Many seniors keep pets. They also love animals and birds. This topic describes the similarities between birds and humans. To its great surprise there is no ancestor of birds and humans that made a song.

Birdsong is one of the most beautiful sounds on the planet.Bird tweets and calls have a complex sentence structure that can tell us a lot about the evolution of human language.

Many birds make sounds and patterns similar to human music.Composer Emily Doolittle says, “I think there is lots of room for musicians and scientists to work together to better understand animal songs.” More and more, researchers around the world are exploring connections between birdsong and human sounds.

Although we are far apart from birds in evolution, most of us love birdsong.Bird watchers often learn to imitate birdcalls, and a few bird watching societies have built a dialogue with the birds around them.

Bird researchers are surprised at how similar humans and birds are, especially in making a tune.“There is no common ancestor of birds and humans that had a music-like song”, says Doolittle.“But independently, through evolution, birds and humans have become quite similar, both in the way they sound and in how important songs are in their lives.”.

Source: BBC Earth [online] / http://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=the-link-betweenbirdsong-and-language.

Adapted by: Jodie Hruby UK/USA.