○自由な題名 ◎水 ○流行と自分、競争はよいか ○Some people say英文のみのページ（翻訳用）
Some people say that humans are the only animals that have language. Is this true? It is a very difficult question to answer. Different kinds of animals must be studied. Many People think some animals certainly have a communicational, system.
Bees do two kinds of dances to tell other bees about their discovery of food. First, there is a round dance. In this dance, the bee moves in a circle inside the hive. The round dance is used when food is nearby. The food must not be more than ten meters away. If a bee comes back and does a round dance, other bee know they must go out and look nearby for food. The bees also smell the bee that has found the food. The smell tells them what kind of flower to look for. After watching the round dance and smelling the bee that has found the food, the other bees can find the food source.
A second kind of dance done by the bees is a tail-wagging dance. In this dance, the bee wags the end of its body as it moves in a straight line. The tail-wagging dance is used when the food is far away. The food must be more than ten meters away. The bees know from the speed of the tail-wagging dance just how far away the food source is. The line the bee dances on shows the direction that the bees must fly in to find the food. In the tail-wagging dance, the bees also smell the bee that has found the food. The smell tells them what kind of flower to look for. After watching the tail-wagging dance and smelling the bee that has found the food, the other bees know three things. They know how far to fly, what direction to fly in, what kind of flower to look for.
The bees' communications system is very interesting. Each bee can tell all the other bees where to look for food. The bees can also tell one another if the food is good, and how much of it there is. One scientist did an experiment with bees. He put a food source very high above the bee hive, and put a bee into the food. The bee returned to the hive and did the round dance, but no other bees could find the food. This suggests that bees do not really have a language. One bee could not tell the other bees the height of the food. One bee could not communicate this new information to the others.
Scientists have studied dolphins, like bees, to see if they have a language. Although scientists have not studied the dolphin as carefully as they have studied the bee, they have made interesting discoveries. They have done a few experiments with dolphins. They have studied the dolphin because its general behavior is much like that of humans. For communication, however, the dolphin's system is much more limited than a person's. The dolphin has three kinds of calls or noises to tell other dolphins about food, danger, or other things.
Bees and dolphins may communicate, but we are not sure if they have language. It is much more difficult to decide if monkeys have language. Monkeys are very similar to humans. So some scientists in the late l940's tried to teach a monkey named Viki to talk. After a year, Viki could only say a few words. Part of the problem with this experiment is that monkeys do not have the same kind of mouth as humans. They are not really able to make human speech sounds. As a result, the experiment with Viki did not work well.
In the l960's, other scientists tried to teach a monkey named Washoe to use a sign language. In a sign language, words are not spoken -- signs are made with the hands. Many people who cannot speak or hear use this sign language. It looked like a better kind of language to teach to a monkey. After two years, Washoe could make thirty-four signs with her hands. For examples, she could put three fingers next to her ear as a sign for her name, Washoe. She could also use the sign for ”come here,” by putting her arm out and bending it back to herself. She could also do two other things. First, she combined signs to make sentences. Second, she used one sign for all things of one kind, and generalized her use of the sign. The ability to combine and to generalize is important in language use.
If we can say that language is any system for exchanging information, then bees, dolphins, and monkeys all have a language. But if we can say that language is a system for exchanging information by making new combinations of symbols, then bees and dolphins do not have a language, but monkeys may have one. Monkeys are clearly able to combine symbols in a human language scientists have taught. This is not their usual language, however. Many more studies must be done before we can be sure if animals have language.