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All animals communicate.
所有動物都會相互交流。
Crabs wave their claws at each other to signal that they're healthy and ready to mate.
螃蟹相互揮舞鉗子表明它們健康并準(zhǔn)備交配。
Cuttlefish use pigmented skin cells called chromatophores to create patterns on their skin that act as camouflage or warnings to rivals.
烏賊使用叫做色素體的皮膚色素細(xì)胞在皮膚上創(chuàng)造圖案形成偽裝，用來迷惑或警示敵人。
Honeybees perform complex dances to let other bees know the location and quality of a food source.
蜜蜂通過表演復(fù)雜的舞蹈來讓其他蜜蜂知道食物源的位置和質(zhì)量。
All of these animals have impressive communication systems, but do they have language?
所有動物都有一流的交流系統(tǒng)，但它們有語言嗎？
To answer that question, we can look at four specific qualities that are often associated with language: discreteness, grammar, productivity, and displacement.
為了回答這個(gè)問題，我們來看一下跟語言相關(guān)的4個(gè)特質(zhì)：分離性、語法性、創(chuàng)造性和時(shí)空性。
Discreteness means that there is a set of individual units, such as sounds or words, that can be combined to communicate new ideas, like a set of refrigerator poetry magnets you can rearrange to create different phrases.
分離性是指一組獨(dú)立單元比如聲音或者詞語，能夠被組合在一起傳達(dá)新的想法。就像貼在冰箱門上的詩詞磁條可以通過重組來創(chuàng)建不同的詞匯。
Grammar provides a system of rules that tells you how to combine those individual units.
語法性提供了一套規(guī)則，讓你知道如何組合那些獨(dú)立單元。
Productivity is the ability to use language to create an infinite number of messages.
創(chuàng)造性是運(yùn)用語言來創(chuàng)造無限量信息的能力。
And displacement is the ability to talk about things that aren't right in front of you, such as past, future, or fictional events.
時(shí)空性是談?wù)撃切┎辉谘矍暗氖挛铮热邕^去，未來或者虛構(gòu)事件。
So, does animal communication exhibit any of these qualities?
那么，動物交流時(shí)會展現(xiàn)出其中的任何特質(zhì)嗎？
For crabs and cuttlefish, the answer is no.
就螃蟹和烏賊而言，答案是不會。
They don't combine their signals in creative ways.
它們不會以創(chuàng)新的方式來銜接這些信號。
Those signals also don't have to be in a grammatical order, and they only communicate current conditions, like, "I am healthy," or "I am poisonous."
那些信號沒有必要按照語法的順序排列，它們只交流現(xiàn)狀，比如，“我很健康”，或者“我有毒”。
But some animals actually do display some of these properties.
但有一些動物們會展現(xiàn)出這些特性。
Bees use the moves, angle, duration, and intensity of their waggle dance to describe the location and richness of a food source.
蜜蜂們在舞蹈中通過搖擺舞的位置變動、角度、時(shí)長和強(qiáng)度來描述食物源的位置和豐富程度。
That source is outside the hive, so they exhibit the property of displacement.
食物源位于蜂巢之外，所以它們展現(xiàn)出了時(shí)空性。
They share that language trait with prairie dogs, which live in towns of thousands, and are hunted by coyotes, hawks, badgers, snakes, and humans.
它們分享了跟土撥鼠一樣的語言特征，土撥鼠住在數(shù)千個(gè)城鎮(zhèn)中，是土狼、老鷹、獾、蛇和人類的獵物。
