Neurolinguistics and animal cognitive science

Ristret

Humans have developed language as one of their most precious resources. Language ensured that reproduction could be more organized and continuative, as proved by the human supremacy on the planet. This evolution has made us different from the other species; language is what sets us apart from the other animals. Yet, although they cannot speak, the other animal species have a different way to communicate, which we have difficulty to understand and sometimes barely recognize. Evolution, since it did not develop language in animals, might have sharpened other senses and created a particular sensibility, which might have been dulled in humans by the expansion of the neo-cortex1. Animals, in fact, possessing a reptilian brain governed by instinct, which is more ancient than the neo-cortex, have characteristics of intuition which are different from those of humans – this might explain, for example, the ability of dogs to predict natural events such as earthquakes before they occur. In this paper, we have applied the study of neurolinguistics to the analysis of several specific cases, in order to investigate the language of animals, understand its processes and relate with what we, as humans, have lost through evolution