crows call me breadladyi’m convinced there are numerous non-human sapient species on earth but an anthropocentrism practiced at scale denies us the opportunity to discover or explore these frontiers
it’s been shown that you can teach various species intermediary languages (amy the gorilla speaking sign language, for instance) so pure translation matrices aren’t necessary for meaningful communication. moreover peoples around the world have historically developed complex material relationships with animal communities using what can be considered gift economies. for instance it’s actually pretty simple to establish trade relationships with crows 🐦
for those wondering how to establish trade relations with crows:
- feed crows food A regularly
- when crows decide to bring you gifts, feed them food B
- when crows bring you different categories of gifts, feed them a food-per-category, ex: food C for jewelry, food D for paper money, etc
- crows will recognize these exchange patterns and opt to bring you things in order to acquire desired treats
good luck! 🐦
Gabs, doggy dog@garbados crows are lovely birds and id love to give that a try with the group that lives in my yard.
though about gorillas ive seen questions on whether theyve actually been taught a language or have been trained to respond to the researchers with pseudo language, just somethings ive heard in passing from scientists i follow on twitter though nothing specific ive read
@daylight another person brought up the pitfalls of calling it a “language” because in practice it’s been more like a static set of symbols rather than a living comms construct. teaching a stranger an intermediary code to facilitate comms is just one of the tools in our xenodiplomatic kit, but i think the real trick comes when strangers pass the code among themselves and it *becomes* a language, facilitating complex dialogue. that will be an astonishing accomplishment.
@garbados big agree and i hope to be proven wrong on that front