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I deleted [[Category:Nonverbal communication]] because that category relates to human communication. If there is a category for animal communication, this article surely belongs in it. Cbdorsett 09:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Quite frankly, this article is junk, and ought be deleted.
I just created a category for talking birds. With the large number of bird species that have this ability I feel a category would be appropriate. I could use some help getting this filled. JeffStickney 17:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This article focuses primarily on specific individual talking birds. The information about bird species' ability to be taught to speak is sparce and generally redundant to their main article. Therefore, I propose adjusting this article towards what I percieve is its intent, List of notable individual talking birds. Alternatively List of notable talking birds or List of talking birds. Regardless of the title, we should add a "Lead selection criteria" as defined in WP:SAL explaining that this is a list of individual birds who are known by way of independent sources for their ability to talk. - Verdatum ( talk) 21:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
regular crows and ravens can be trained to talk, and are much better imitators than parrots. i don't know how widespread across corvidae this is, so not added anything, but its certainly not just the minor bird.
I'm trying to find out why some birds would have evolved to mimic other animals. I would think that it would be disadvantageous if they mimicked a predator's mating call or something or attracted a predator of the animal they're mimicking. 123.243.215.92 ( talk) 12:24, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
This is a disappointing article. It says too little about the most interesting aspect of this subject, which is how far birds understand what they are saying and how far they are just dumbly mimicking what they hear. It also uses phrases like "vocabulary of almost two thousand words", leaving the reader to guess at the extent to which "vocabulary" is meant in a human sense, without ever properly developing the topic. 86.167.124.229 ( talk) 03:37, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
I have recently been reverting edits indicating that birds "utter" human speech to indicate they "mimic" human speech. This is for two reasons. (1) There has been research on only a very few (I think 5 or 6) numbers of individual birds in relation to their cognitive abilities with respect to talking. This article is about talking birds in general, not just these few isolated individuals. The lead sentence should represent this generality and therefore "mimic" is the appropriate word. (2) The research on the limited numbers of individual birds is contentious. It is not universally accepted that these birds understand what they are saying. The articles on Alex the parrot and N'kisi the parrot both acknowledge this as they have sections entitled "controversy" which indicate that not all experts agree on the interpretation that the birds understand what they are saying. This Talking birds generalist page should not have controversial information in the lead sentence by saying the birds are "uttering" human speech - "mimic" is the appropriate word__ DrChrissy ( talk) 16:37, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
The page has now been protected for a week due to the slow edit-warring over the past month or so. No more back and forth reverting, please. Try to discuss and reach a consensus on here before making any more of these utter/mimic edits - thanks. For what it's worth, I think that it's quite probable that some parrots can be taught (or may come to understand) the meanings of certain words and phrases - but there are also a lot of parrots that will simply sit on the perch and just repeat the two things that the know how to say, on a loop (I suppose everyone who's ever owned a talking Budgie or Cockatiel knows what I'm talking about here). As though they're just incorporating human noises into their 'song', or something... -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 20:51, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
Anyhoo - perhaps it would be a good idea to put something in the lede along the lines of 'Talking birds are birds that can mimic, and in certain cases possibly utilize with understanding human spoken language' (or words to that effect)? It's a bit clunky, but it is, as far as I know, the current widely-accepted thinking on this matter - and it is reflected later in the article with the direct mentions of Alex and N'Kisi. -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 00:41, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
So, for now (future discussion of splitting the article aside) - would using the wording that Boomur suggested above be a good compromise, do you think? I like that wording and it seems accurate, to me at least... -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 17:18, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
I have submitted the new article to AFD [1]. Dbrodbeck ( talk) 22:41, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
References
Chandler
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).smith
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).The_Economist_obit
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).A recent edit indicated that there are 2 species of African grey, rather than 2 sub-species. When I initially entered 2 sub-species, I was using information provided on African Grey Parrot. Which is correct? I am not a taxonomist, and I am not overly concerned about this, its just there seems to be a bit of inconsistency.__ DrChrissy ( talk) 18:04, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
See some of the articles by Erin Colbert-White. I'll just leave this here before I lose the link.
- "Social context influences the vocalizations of a home-raised African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus erithacus)" - "Higher-order semantic structures in an African Grey parrot's vocalizations: Evidence from the Hyperspace Analog to Language (HAL) model"
I find them to be quite heavy reading but they may be of relevance to this article. -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 02:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
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I'm thinking maybe we should rearrange birds in this page according to IOC taxonomy. This is Wikipedia's official taxonomy for birds. It will be similar to the List of birds of (region) pages, with a section for each family. Grey Clownfish ( talk) 01:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Talking bird article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
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![]() | This article was selected as the article for improvement on 2 December 2013 for a period of one week. |
![]() | The contents of the Talking bird (cognition) page were merged into Talking bird. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page. (March 16, 2014) |
I deleted [[Category:Nonverbal communication]] because that category relates to human communication. If there is a category for animal communication, this article surely belongs in it. Cbdorsett 09:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Quite frankly, this article is junk, and ought be deleted.
I just created a category for talking birds. With the large number of bird species that have this ability I feel a category would be appropriate. I could use some help getting this filled. JeffStickney 17:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
This article focuses primarily on specific individual talking birds. The information about bird species' ability to be taught to speak is sparce and generally redundant to their main article. Therefore, I propose adjusting this article towards what I percieve is its intent, List of notable individual talking birds. Alternatively List of notable talking birds or List of talking birds. Regardless of the title, we should add a "Lead selection criteria" as defined in WP:SAL explaining that this is a list of individual birds who are known by way of independent sources for their ability to talk. - Verdatum ( talk) 21:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
regular crows and ravens can be trained to talk, and are much better imitators than parrots. i don't know how widespread across corvidae this is, so not added anything, but its certainly not just the minor bird.
I'm trying to find out why some birds would have evolved to mimic other animals. I would think that it would be disadvantageous if they mimicked a predator's mating call or something or attracted a predator of the animal they're mimicking. 123.243.215.92 ( talk) 12:24, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
This is a disappointing article. It says too little about the most interesting aspect of this subject, which is how far birds understand what they are saying and how far they are just dumbly mimicking what they hear. It also uses phrases like "vocabulary of almost two thousand words", leaving the reader to guess at the extent to which "vocabulary" is meant in a human sense, without ever properly developing the topic. 86.167.124.229 ( talk) 03:37, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
I have recently been reverting edits indicating that birds "utter" human speech to indicate they "mimic" human speech. This is for two reasons. (1) There has been research on only a very few (I think 5 or 6) numbers of individual birds in relation to their cognitive abilities with respect to talking. This article is about talking birds in general, not just these few isolated individuals. The lead sentence should represent this generality and therefore "mimic" is the appropriate word. (2) The research on the limited numbers of individual birds is contentious. It is not universally accepted that these birds understand what they are saying. The articles on Alex the parrot and N'kisi the parrot both acknowledge this as they have sections entitled "controversy" which indicate that not all experts agree on the interpretation that the birds understand what they are saying. This Talking birds generalist page should not have controversial information in the lead sentence by saying the birds are "uttering" human speech - "mimic" is the appropriate word__ DrChrissy ( talk) 16:37, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
The page has now been protected for a week due to the slow edit-warring over the past month or so. No more back and forth reverting, please. Try to discuss and reach a consensus on here before making any more of these utter/mimic edits - thanks. For what it's worth, I think that it's quite probable that some parrots can be taught (or may come to understand) the meanings of certain words and phrases - but there are also a lot of parrots that will simply sit on the perch and just repeat the two things that the know how to say, on a loop (I suppose everyone who's ever owned a talking Budgie or Cockatiel knows what I'm talking about here). As though they're just incorporating human noises into their 'song', or something... -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 20:51, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
Anyhoo - perhaps it would be a good idea to put something in the lede along the lines of 'Talking birds are birds that can mimic, and in certain cases possibly utilize with understanding human spoken language' (or words to that effect)? It's a bit clunky, but it is, as far as I know, the current widely-accepted thinking on this matter - and it is reflected later in the article with the direct mentions of Alex and N'Kisi. -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 00:41, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
So, for now (future discussion of splitting the article aside) - would using the wording that Boomur suggested above be a good compromise, do you think? I like that wording and it seems accurate, to me at least... -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 17:18, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
I have submitted the new article to AFD [1]. Dbrodbeck ( talk) 22:41, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
References
Chandler
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).smith
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).The_Economist_obit
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).A recent edit indicated that there are 2 species of African grey, rather than 2 sub-species. When I initially entered 2 sub-species, I was using information provided on African Grey Parrot. Which is correct? I am not a taxonomist, and I am not overly concerned about this, its just there seems to be a bit of inconsistency.__ DrChrissy ( talk) 18:04, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
See some of the articles by Erin Colbert-White. I'll just leave this here before I lose the link.
- "Social context influences the vocalizations of a home-raised African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus erithacus)" - "Higher-order semantic structures in an African Grey parrot's vocalizations: Evidence from the Hyperspace Analog to Language (HAL) model"
I find them to be quite heavy reading but they may be of relevance to this article. -- Kurt Shaped Box ( talk) 02:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Talking bird. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{
Sourcecheck}}
).
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 16:50, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm thinking maybe we should rearrange birds in this page according to IOC taxonomy. This is Wikipedia's official taxonomy for birds. It will be similar to the List of birds of (region) pages, with a section for each family. Grey Clownfish ( talk) 01:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)