This is in any case a hypothesis proposed by American researchers in a study published on June 10 in the journal “Nature Ecology & Evolution”.
Article initially written in June 2024
The first names, the characteristic of humanity?
These biologists from the University of Colorado (USA) explain that according to their observations, the elephants of Africa are aimed at their congeners with variations in barrier.
A very exhilarating discovery, especially when it was thought that this particular name was characteristic of humanity without too many analogues, as the authors remind us: “ While dolphins and parrots are addressed to their congeners by imitating the cries of the recipient, human names are not imitations of the sounds generally issued by the individual named”.
The identity sheet of “the caller” in a single barrier
Between imitation and direct designation, a subtlety which would radically expand the expressive power of language. To be sure that the elephants of wild Africa had this specificity, the researchers recorded some 469 barrisses from different contexts (greetings, calls, etc.).
Using AI, the researchers then tried to find out if the identity of the elephant to which the call was addressed was predictable. According to the results, the barrisses would not be an imitation, but understood “simultaneously multiple messages, including, but without limiting themselves, the identity of the caller, his age, his sex, his emotional state and his behavioral context”.
Cetaceans, primates, elephants … these animals that have complex languages
The AI identified the recipient of the call in 27% of cases, too large a number for it to be a coincidence. In conclusion, for study authors, the barrisses of pachyderms, made up of inaudible infrasounds for humans, convey a lot of information thanks to their complex vocalizations.
In the future, biologists wish to dig more the complexity of the language of elephants, which they now put in terms of cetaceans and primates and more broadly, how complex language emerges in animals.
Source : Release
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