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Parrot language

 Teaching a parrot to talk english properly.
 
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If you hear parrots in the wild they all seem to have similar calls and noises, but parrots in captivity seem to copy the sounds of their surroundings. I recon a parrot will use a sound to best describe its feelings, it might say hello but the pitch and tone of the 'hello' might mean something completely different to the parrot. I beleve it may be possible to train a parrot to use the correct words to speak its thoughts using expressive tones and repeating words in certain situations. Also if you could record common calls of wild parrots and translate them into english you could 'rewire' a parrots sound database in this way.
—killfrenzy, Nov 23 2003

http://www.parrotsp...m/Another_Mind.html Some of the issues here remind me of assisted writing - how much meaning does the listener put in? [jutta, Jan 01 2009, last modified Jan 02 2009]

Fis phenomenon http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Fis_phenomenon
Reception is important [nineteenthly, Jan 06 2009]

[link]






       I fine proposition young one
—UndeadWario, Nov 23 2003
   

       I saw this parrot language lady speak once.(link) Also the parrot. It is exactly what you propose, [kill].
—bungston, Nov 23 2003
   

       couldn't you hear her bung? you should have yelled "louder!"
—po, Nov 23 2003
   

       Cor! I fink ee's got somefink, ear.
—lintkeeper2, Nov 23 2003
   

       [po]; I did just that, then yelled a lot of other things in addition. Things got pretty unruly. I wound up getting a bad parrot bite before the cops cleared the hall.
—bungston, Nov 23 2003
   

       //couldn't you hear her bung?//   

       Could you rephrase that?
—thumbwax, Nov 23 2003
   

       //no such thing as a good parrot bite// Depends on if you go for breast or wing.
—lostdog, Nov 23 2003
   

       bung, couldn't you hear her?   

       {better?}
—po, Nov 24 2003
   

       'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you show...
—lizziepunkin, Nov 24 2003
   

       I'd love it if the parrot could tell us what it was thinking. Actually I'd rather know what my dog was thinking - especially when it’s dreaming - but I guess we are more likely to be able to teach a parrot to talk than a dog given its ability to make recognisable sounds.   

       I've always assumed that, to the parrot, the sound of saying "pretty Polly" has no relation to the actual meaning of the words it is saying and it just treats it as another 'song' in its repertoire. What would we do if the parrot said "Oh evil humans free me and my kind from the torturous imprisonment of your oppression."?
—dobtabulous, Nov 24 2003
   

       Remember reading about a parrot who obviously linked words of human speech and their meaning, if in a rudimentary way.   

       Apparently the owners taught the parrot to understand a few commands and used "Step up" to tell him to climb onto their arm or a stick so they could take him out of his cage. After a while when he decided he wanted to come out or when the owners opened the cage door he used the same phrase. So he showed that he understood the link between the phrase "Step up" and being let out of his cage.   

       He could also tell certain foods, people and other animals apart and name them.
—squeak, Nov 24 2003
   

       Crap, the publc library won't let me open the link, jutta.
—blissmiss, Jan 03 2009
   

       Why does everyone focus on the "what does the bird mean" aspect of language and ignore the "what does the bird think we mean" part. Birds communicate complicated information to one another all the time in the wild. This information often comes in a referential form: Danger on the ground, Give me that worm or I'll trounce you, A hawk is over head. When learning human "songs" parrots learn the context of the noise in a referential way: kinds, locations, behaviors. They tend to struggle with time, relationship, and other non-referential context that is the real meat of our language because it has no correlation in their brains . They learn our songs not our language and they learn it in the way that best fits their biology.
—WcW, Jan 03 2009
   

       -1. Parrots should really speak Spanish, don't you know. (or Afrikans, or Australian or something (sorry, UB)).
—Zimmy, Jan 06 2009
   

       Two things about this:
It's the decision of the adults when a child says its first word. When i first spoke, i was often baffled by the failure of the people around me to understand, but also enthusiastic and engaged with the process. This is the "fis" phenomenon. My daughter's first word was "Tür", but it wasn't clear to other people because they didn't expect her to be speaking German, so was that my decision? Similarly, a friend of mine used to say something that sounded like "Papa hu hu", which she thought of as "Papa fährt mit dem Auto zur Schule", but clearly no-one else did. She wasn't speaking until someone decided she was. With parrots, they aren't speaking unless we decide they are, or maybe other parrots. They may not be speaking even if we do decide they are.
The other thing is, why not come up with a conlang for parrots? Make it easier for them to speak by creating a language they can pronounce and is more relevant to their environment.
—nineteenthly, Jan 06 2009
   
      
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