“We should turn it into KFC,” my dad said, gazing disdainfully at the family lovebird.
To be fair, he was joking (I think) and said love bird is a rage infused mentally ill pet my sister purchased for my mother several Christmases ago. I think she did it with the same good faith a trailer park chick does when she starts dating an abusive alcoholic who’s good in bed (“I can chaaange him…”) And, similarly – as you might expect, that never happened. The bird was obviously traumatized early on and now remains a cage recluse who dances in its own poo piles and vice-bites anything that approaches. Ah, well, we tried. And we still do. Because we don’t give up on our pets. I’d say “even the birds”, but after today’s Scientific American lesson, that should be “especially the birds”. Because although we use our language to give our avian pals a bad reputation with cruel catchphrases (“birdbrain”, “flip the bird”, and “this is for the birds”), language – however we use it – may be our common denominator.
In fact, a recent study shows these “birdbrains” and ours share 55 vocalization genes.
For example, when they’re feathery infants, sitting in their nest all crocodile jawed and waiting for a wormy meal from mom, they’re doing the same things we do from our highchairs. They babble in these early years, learn from their elder sky dwellers, and can even be bilingual if exposed to different dialects.
Just like you ‘n me.
“I ‘thought’, sweetie. It’s…’Th-Th-Thooought’…”
Despite the millions of years of evolution that separate Tweetie and me, we still share these language similarities – a surprisingly rare evolutionary gift that only we and a handful of other creatures have. As a comparative example, you know how we’re always likening ourselves to the monkeys from whom we evolved? Even they – with all their grunts and screams – don’t possess this level:epic set of vocal genes species like birds and us do. And that’s because we both experienced the same conditions somewhere along the evo-tree that granted it to us. And the capacity to learn speech was favorable and necessary enough for each of us that no matter how many years passed, we managed to hang onto it.
Still, the coolest thing about this study isn’t just a newfound respect for that poor psychotic ball of feathers sat in a prison in my childhood home right now, probably wishing my dad’s KFC threat were real because it hates life so much. No. I’m still not overly fond of anything that can fly when I can’t (#jealz). Rather, the coolest thing about this four-year-long research effort is the implication that comes with any finding that claims “we found the genes that control XYZ human behavior”. In this case, they found the genes that control the ability to learn language. And that means one thing for me: this is the official green light to initiate my ten year plan to grow a dog who can speak to me. And, to honor both where it was born (a lab) and what it does (talk), I shall call it…
…The LabraBabble
And then clone a whole family of ’em.
#Kickstarter?