NP: Maneka Gandi: Fowl language

[Guest guest]

*Fowl language

*MANEKA GANDHI

http://www.ekantipur.com/2009/12/15/most-popular/Fowl-language/304488/

 

KATHMANDU, DEC 15 - Next time you pass by a truck filled with small cages

filled with chickens, most of whom have one leg or wing broken and is

squatting in great pain and utter hopeless anguish in the truck while the

hot or icy wind tears about them and the feces of the chickens in the cages

above theirs drip onto them, remember that they are probably talking or

crying to each other and wondering which hell they are being taken to. When

you see them in dirty cages outside chicken shops seeing their kin being

pulled out and chopped in front of them, imagine what they must be saying to

each other. What would you have said in their place?

 

For chickens talk a lot. They have a rich language and intelligence.

According to new research, chickens make meaningful sounds that refer to

objects around them. A pecking chicken that goes “tck, tck, tck”, for

example, is saying, “Hey look, there’s food!”

 

Would you kill and eat a monkey or an ape with the same indifference with

which you eat chickens? No, because you know they think and deal with the

world, almost as humans do. Scientists have proved again and again that

primates make sounds that, like words, represent something in the world

around them.

 

Now, scientists have found that chickens are like monkeys in their word and

sentence structure. Each cluck means something, and lots of clucks together

mean whole sentences. Studies in Macquarie University, Australia show that

male chickens make certain clucking noises when they find food. When female

chickens (hens) hear these noises, they stomp over and either take some food

from a male’s beak or stare at the ground looking for morsels to eat. Other

studies show, for example, that chickens make alarm calls when scared by an

intruder. The calls differ depending on whether the intruder walks or flies

toward them, which means that the chicken is saying, “An intruder is walking

towards me so scatter in this fashion...” or “A bird is flying overhead, so

run and hide.” The fact that it is an understandable language is shown by

the fact that other chickens react by looking either up in the air or around

on the ground.

 

In another experiment, researchers allowed half the hens to find some corn —

not enough to fill the animals up, but enough to alert them that food was

around. The other half did not get any corn. The scientists then played

recordings of male food calls for the hens. The hens that already knew food

was available looked at the ground for just three seconds. The food-deprived

hens, on the other hand, searched for an average of 7.5 seconds after

hearing the male calls. On the other hand, when the hens heard alarm calls,

both fed and unfed birds reacted in the same way. These results show the

birds knew what the food call meant, and their reaction depended on what

they already knew about the area’s food supply so they could judge whether

the call was a lie or not. Primatologist Klaus Zuberbühler of the University

of St. Andrews in Scotland compares the results to those from his own test

with monkeys. Monkey calls indicating one kind of predator, say a snake,

were completely different from those about an eagle; and the monkeys

responded differently to both.

Chickens have a complex communication system which includes over 20

different signals that humans have interpreted; and at least several hundred

more that are under translation.

 

Here are some of the calls that you can learn to understand: Waanh-hunh “I’m

curious”, bu-bu-bu-bu-buh1 “Hello”, k-k-k-k-k-kh “I’m happy!”,

tw-tw-tw-tw-tw “I’m on the nest”, ooonhaawh “Get out of my way, I want your

space”, ooonhaawh (half speed) “Sounds like a foghorn, doesn’t it?,

huh-huh-huh-ahn “Give me some food”, wnnn-nn wn-wn “What are you doing?”,

cuc-cuc-cuc1 “There’s a cat on that fence!”, cuc-cuc-cuc2 “Happy curiosity.

Friendly”, wtwtwtwtwtnnn “Don’t touch my egg”, tookatookatooka “What happy

bliss on a perfect day in the shade”. Soft scream “Hawk overhead!” Excited

cackling Ga-ga-GAAK, ga-ga-GAAK means dangerous human coming.

 

Conveniently, we have yet to analyse the calls for “Please don’t hurt me”,

“Please don’t kill him”, “Please don’t take away my baby”, “Ouch! that hurts

very much”, “My wing is broken”, “Please give me some space”.

 

Fowl linguist and scientist Dr. Erich Baeumer of Wiedenau, Germany who has

been studying chickens since 1954 says that he has made a list of 30

sentences which are part of a spoken international chicken language —

whether an Indian Jungle fowl, a Russian Orloff rooster, an Italian Leghorn,

a Cornish cock or a New Hampshire Red. Baeumer was eight when he realised

that he could understand the chickens around his house. “It was an intuitive

understanding, I could actually tell what they were saying. I began to spend

hours with them; they became brothers and sisters to me.” He learned to

imitate their sounds so well that he was accepted as a full-fledged member

of the flock. Only when his voice changed did the chickens break off

communication with him.

 

In 1954, he started working with Professor Erich von Hoist at the Institute

of Behavior Physiology near Munich. Chickens were photographed and recorded

repeatedly. After recording hours of chicken talk, Dr. Baeumer selected

examples of clear-cut chicken “sentences” that could be related to records

or photographs of specific actions. Dr. Baeumer’s chick-talk tapes have been

played at universities in many countries. He knows the loneliness cries of

young chicks separated from their mother (“Pieep-pieep-pieep”); and their

terror trills, a high-pitched “Trr-trr.” Both sexes make “frightened”

cackles when first they sense danger. After the danger passes, their

cackling is full-throated and rhythmical, as if they had triumphed.

 

Hens make a cackle when they have laid an egg, but Dr. Baeumer does not

think they are boasting or saying, “Thank heaven that’s over.” He believes

that it all goes back to the days when wild hens laid eggs in hidden nests.

After each delivery, the hen gave a loud cackle to regain contact with the

rest of the flock. Chickens make screams of distress; they have battle cries

and calls for privacy. Hens lead their chicks to food with a gentle

“Tuck-tuck-tuck”, and roosters entice pretty young hens with soft cooing.

“Chicken behavior is not too different from human behavior,” says Dr.

Baeumer. “Nor is chicken language.”

 

Think of this when you eat a chicken. What could she have been saying as she

was dragged out to be killed for you. Could it be “Forgive them for they

know not what they do”?

 

gandhim