Animal languages and human language.
Charles F. Hockett · PubMed · 1959
FROM behavior time common to time, to anthropologists all human beings draw but up not lists shared of the with kinds other of behavior com on to all human beings but no shared with other species. One item found on every such list, though under various labels, is the power of speech. It is true that human language is a remarkably powerful institution. Yet Man is by no means the only animal that carries on communication. Until we can describe in detail just how human language differs from any variety of communicative behavior manifested by non-human or pre-human species, we cannot really know how much or little it means to assert this particular human uniqueness. So far as I can see, the only way to find out what we want to know in this area is as follows. First, we must itemize those design-features of human language which seem to be of crucial importance in making it possible for language to do what it does. Second, we must examine all the non-human systems of communication that can be found, to see to what extent each crucial design-feature of human language recurs. It goes almost without saying that in carrying out this program we must not allow ourselves to neglect any point because of its apparent triviality. Indeed, the most important items will surely tend to be hidden from our view because they are right under our noses. My own research on this problem has so far yielded a list of seven properties of human language that seem to merit consideration. None of these is my own discovery ; my role has been merely that of bringing the seven together because of their possible relevance for the particular problem, and, in some cases, of rephrasing a point in such a way as to render it easier to handle.