Language discrimination by Java sparrows.

Shigeru Watanabe; Erico Yamamoto; Midori Uozumi

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2006.01.013

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Language discrimination by Java sparrows.

Shigeru Watanabe·Erico Yamamoto·Midori Uozumi

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Abstract

Java sparrows (Padda oryzivora) were trained to discriminate English from Chinese spoken by a bilingual speaker. They could learn discrimination and showed generalization to new sentences spoken by the same speaker and those spoken by a new speaker. Thus, the birds distinguished between English and Chinese. Although auditory cues for the discrimination were not specified, this is the first evidence that non-mammalian species can discriminate human languages.

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Animal Communication Animals China Cues Discrimination Learning Female Humans Language Male Multilingualism Sparrows Speech Acoustics Speech Discrimination Tests Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

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Shigeru Watanabe, Erico Yamamoto, Midori Uozumi. 2006-03-09. Language discrimination by Java sparrows.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2006.01.013

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