Essay: The Relationship Between the Language of Human and Animals, and Animal Training

Scientists have made many studies related to similarities between animal sounds and human sounds. These studies show that humans and animals differ from each other in terms of sound.
After discovering this difference, scientists have started to research similarities or differences between these two creatures. Firstly, they started to teach human language to animals. They tried to explain the sign language to the chimpanzee named Washoe in 1968. There are also other experiments with another chimpanzee named Sarah and female gorilla Koko. Allegedly, Sarah was able to explain the meal with an intelligence of two-year-old child. However, ten years later, Herbert Terrace who is a New York monkeys psychologist revealed that the experimental monkey called Nim could not go beyond imitating the gestures and behaviors of trainers, and did not change its own inborn behaviors.
Animal species and communities can only make a number of sounds providing communication and agreement between themselves. Bio-acoustic specialists have discovered many words of the animals, and they can even make a dictionary of animal sounds. Most importantly, however, no animal can make the sound of letters. Because, the mechanism of epiglottis and throat wall are different in animals from humans. According to scientists, this feature continues in the same way since the first creation of living.
Another interesting event is that rodents communicate with a sound similar to “tamtam” sound. So far, while domestic and European rabbits hit their foot, it has been considered a sign of excitement. Today, it has been understood that the sound that these animals make carry important messages. According to French researcher Pierre Bridelance, “These rumblings are divided into thin and arranged rhythmic units. Each type has its own communication point. Thus, they report enemy one another, and describe the borders of their territory.”
It has been demonstrated that all animal languages include three main common sounds which are different from humans and exactly the same: growling, barking, and howling. According to Dr. Eugene P. Morton developing Esperanto thesis, the height of tone is not important, but tuning of tone is important. Accordingly, almost all animals can be distinguished by their frequency of growling, barking and howling sounds.
Another issue worth considering is that animals can also express their feelings with some different movements, as well as with audio signals. The posture of the head and tail of the wolf, movements of elephant ears, hose and tail, posture of birds, ruffling of feathers are other ways of communication in the animals.
It is known that caressing an animal lowers its blood pressure and pulse. Likewise, it is also known that speaking to an animal lowers the blood pressure of a human. Because, during such an activity, human is relaxed.
During the development of civilization, humanity has benefited so much from animals and committed to them that it is not possible to live without them anymore. Meanwhile, domesticated animal species have forgotten their behaviors necessary in wildlife, and have gained new behaviors in order to adapt to human life. In this case, it is not possible anymore for them to return wildlife. So, both domesticated animals and humans are committed to each other with strong ties by having a perfect communication. However, it is possible to say that this relationship is more helpful for human benefit, and this relationship has started with dogs which are the first domesticated animals.
Examples:
Everyone knows that dogs provide numerous benefits to people such as guidance to blinds, hunting, protection and guarding, finding missing people under the rubble, rescue, catching bomb and narcotics. Also, their friendship is very good.
Among the most important benefits of animals to people, we can say that animals are used in treatment of psychiatric and social adaptation problems of people in terms of social contributions.
Communication of Animals
It is also possible for animals to communicate. Some of the animals and birds have established their own system for communication. However, the communication system of animals are different from the communication of humans. There is no flexibility and creativity in the communication of animals. They have their communication ability genetically, and they don’t learn it. Human communication has important unique properties which are very different from animals.
Human communication is completely different from the communication of animals. There are alphabets in human language. This is helpful for human to write and conserve ideas for the next generations. The communication of animals is context-dependent, it is not possible for them to communicate any past events. Communication skills of animals are transferred biologically, so cannot learn any language. However, parrot can imitate human sounds and words, but it doesn’t know the words’ meaning. Also, it is not possible for parrot to learn many words, it has a very small memory, and when it tries to learn a new word, the learned ones are erased. On the other hand, humans can reproduce the animals voices, and animals respond to thes sounds. Therefore, we cannot talk about the similarity of human and animal communication and language.
Communication Way of Animals
All of the animals communicate widely among themselves. But, they don’t use any certain word. Also, some of the animals such as whales, dolphins and elephants use some sounds and body language. Another important issue is that animals also communicate with people. Especially domesticated animals are examples of such type of animals trying to speak with people. Animals use telepathy method in order to be able to communicate with us. Animals don’t use any word for communication, they just send message through telepathy. However, some of the animals also use body language in order to better explain their thoughts. For example, when dogs are angry, they growl, and when they are happy they wag their tails.
In addition, there is a way in order to be able to understand their ideas in terms of Daily things and health problems, as well. And, there is a way for us to be able to speak their language. When the communication begins, animals feel themselves relaxed, and they make a better communication. When this happens, they send their ideas and feelings by telepathy as if using sentences. By using animal communication, people can understand the feelings and ideas of their pet about the places, people, events, etc.
There are also five basic senses in most of the animals as in humans: touch , taste, smell , hearing and visual senses. But, one or more senses of some animals are more developed than that of humans. For example, dogs are extremely keen in senses of smell and hearing. They can distinguish many smells that we cannot detect, and they can hear low and high frequency sounds that we cannot hear.
Some animals can detect light and dark even though they don’t have eyes, and some of them react to the smell or taste of chemicals. Also, it is thought that animals have other senses that we are unaware. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain that birds, fishes and insects have a very long immigration journey and they come back without losing their ways. Some experts think that this is related to the ability of migratory animals that they benefit from the Earth’s magnetic.
People have a superior ability: speaking. And, many of the developed animals explain that they are hungry, frightened or happy through some sounds such as barking, meowing, roaring, and moaning. Even, some animals communicate with the congener animals by using more complex and expressive sounds. For example, according to researches, while a male bird’s song warns other males stand out from there, it means to approach for its female. Also, birds have various meaningful songs warning themselves against danger, and directing the flock to fly collectively. However, while a parrot or a parakeet imitating the human sound, they cannot know what it means.
In addition, there are also some movements and behaviors meaning a declaration in animals. Europen rabbits make a sound by hitting the ground with their back feet, when they sense a danger. When dogs want to eat or want to roam, they pull their owners.
According to experts, obedience training consists of two phases in dogs. The first one is basic obedience training, and the other one is advanced obedience training. As the name suggests, basic obedience training is the beginning of training, and this training is extremely important for dogs. A dog which does not get a good basic obedience cannot achieve success in advanced obedience training, bodyguard and space protection training. According to experts, it is necessary for an animal to receive basic obedience training from a professional instructor in order to have exact on the animal. It will be easier to give advanced obedience and bodyguard space protection training to a dog having basic obedience training.
Training process changes according to the character and ability of the animal, therefore it is extremely wrong to give a certain training period for every race. And, basic obedience training is provided in 4 to 6-week time period. Then, 4 to 6 weeks are enough for advanced obedience training.
Experts suggest that the last stage of the training is bodyguard and space protection training. This training program is accepted as a single training program. Bodyguard and space protection training is provided in a single training program. This training program is not suitable for all dogs. This training is related to the characteristics of dog breeds. Therefore, it is not true to give bodyguard training to all races. Even if you give this training to a race of which character is not suitable for the training, you cannot reach any real success. The dog which will take bodyguard and space protection training should be tested by a professional trainer, and then the trainer should decide the training.
References
http://evdekopekegitimi.org/
http://wol.jw.org/tr/wol/d/r22/lp-tk/102002249
http://www.milliyet.com.tr/hayvanlarla-iletisim-stresi-ask-iliskiler-1689825/
http://www.biltek.tubitak.gov.tr/merak_ettikleriniz/index.php?kategori_id=7&soru_id=418
http://www.martawilliams.com/WhatIsAnimCom.htm
http://www.dog-obedience-training-review.com/