The ‘chick-a-dee’ calls of Parus atricapillus: A recombinant system of animal communication compared with written English

Some similarities between the "chick-a-dee" call system of the black-capped chickadee (Parus atricapillus) & the writing system of English are examined. The physical structure of the vocal elements in the bird calls was considered based on a large database of field recordings. The bird calls, like human lang, are found to recombine note types to form a variety of calls. Comparison between the two systems is made in terms of encoding capacity of calls & words, & the internal structure of calls vs words. The bird calls have no higher level of structure analogous to grammar in human language & have very different internal structure from words. However, the calls do conform to some of the principles of human language outlined by G. Zipf (The Psycho-Biology of Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935). 7 Tables, 9 Figures, 30 References. B. Annesser Murray