Bird Combines Calls in Specific Order

鸟语也有顺序性

Humans have always considered themselves special compared with other animals. One reason is the complexity of our language—bounded by unique rules, such as syntax, where we string words together in a specific order to create meaningful sentences.

complexity是什么意思英音 [k?m‘pleks?t?]  美音[k?m?pl?ks?ti]  n.复杂性，错综复杂的状态

syntax是什么意思英音 [?s?nt?ks]  美音[?s?n?t?ks]  n.句法；句法规则[分析]；语构；语法

人们总认为与其他动物相比，人类是独特的。其中一个原因就是因为我们语言的复杂性——由于人类语言的独特规则，如句法，即我们将单词串按照特定的语序组成有意义的语句。

But it turns out a bird may also vocalize with syntax rules—the Japanese great tit, a bird that’s a close relative of North America’s very own chickadee. Toshitaka Suzuki, of Japan’s Graduate University for Advanced Studies, has been listening to the calls
of the Japanese great tit for the past decade. Suzuki has recorded at least ten alarm calls used by the bird. These include [sound clip], known as the ABC call, which alerts other great tits to the presence of a predator, and [sound clip] the D call, which
signals the birds to approach the caller.

vocalize是什么意思英音 [‘v??k?la?z]  美音[?vok??la?z]  v.成为有声

tit是什么意思英音 [t?t]  美音[t?t]  基本解释n.[鸟]山雀；

chickadee是什么意思英音 [?t??k?di:]  美音[?t??k??di]  基本解释n.（美洲所产的）山雀；

predator是什么意思英音 [?pred?t?(r)]  美音[?pr?d?t?,
-?t?r]  基本解释n.以掠夺为生的人；捕食其他动物的动物，食肉动物

但是研究结果表明鸟类的叫声也有自己的句法规则——如日本大山雀，北美山雀的近亲。在过去十年里，日本高级研究所的Toshitaka Suzuki，在一直研究日本大山雀的叫声。并记录了大山雀的十种警示性叫声。这其中包括ABC叫声，用以警示其他山雀这里有捕食者，还有D叫声，示意其他大山雀可以接近发声者。

Now Suzuki and his colleagues have found that the great tit uses those calls together to deliver both messages to other birds. And they found that the order of that call was essential—only [sound clip] ABC-D made sense to the birds. When the scientists intentionally
reversed the order to create a D-ABC call [sound clip], the birds did not respond. The study is in the journal Nature Communications.

现在Suzuki和同事们发现大山雀也使用这些叫声向其他鸟类传递信息。同时，它们还发现，叫声的顺序非常的重要——只有ABC-D的叫声可以为其他鸟类所理解。当科学家们有意的更改叫声的顺序为D-ABC时，这些鸟类对此叫声未作出任何回应。该研究结果发表在《自然交流》杂志上。

“I think the really interesting thing is why the order matters, and figuring that out I think will be difficult but also potentially really, really interesting, because it’ll give a lot of insight...” David Wheatcroft of Sweden’s Uppsala University, one of
the study scientists. “You wouldn’t expect sort of naively that it would matter. Obviously it matters in human language, the order in which we say things, but it’s still somehow shocking when you find it in tits. So I think understanding why it’s the case
will be really interesting in the future.”

“我认为真正有趣的点在于为什么这些叫声的顺序这么重要，找到这个问题的答案可能会非常困难，但是这将会及其有趣，因为这将为我们呈现很多洞察面…”，大卫·特克罗夫特是瑞典乌普萨拉大学的科学家。“你千万不要天真的以为这些不重要，只是认为语言顺序对我们人类的语言具有非凡的意义，但是令人震惊的是，这种现象也存在于大山雀的叫声中。所以，我觉得找到其原因将会给未来带来很多乐趣。”

The work could help explain the evolution of the building blocks and structure of our own languages.

这项工作可能会帮助我们解释人类语言建构模块以及结构的进化历程。