n'kisi and the baloney detection kit
those who know me would never expect me to shy away from a good indignant rant or tirade, but what would be the point this time when another kindred spirit in the blogsphere has already taken care of the matter, and very well indeed? i'm talking about geoff pullum from at language log and his entry about the talking parrots stories (and animal communication in general) recently all over the net and the media.«...i'm just appalled at the kind of ridiculous, credulous garbage that sails out into the media universe the moment anyone claims they have located a communicative animal. people seem to completely lose their critical faculties when a bird with a brain the size of a macadamia nut creaks out a few imitated syllables, or (we've seen this before, with koko) a gorilla waves its hairy hand vaguely in the air in a way that its trainer thinks resembles the very sign she was expecting. what is going on? are we so desperate for communication with other intelligences that we will throw away our own the moment some dumb creature gives us an imitative squawk or a hand sign?»
for something truly interesting and amazing regarding language have a look at the news that a swarthmore college linguist has found an unrecorded language in siberia on the brink of extinction.
via languagehat.
