A Murmuration

For a couple of months I kept track of a Language Log article about "talking" starlings (Mark Liberman, "Vocal mimicry on the web", Language Log, 1 November 2008), not so much for all the interesting scholarship on vocal mimicry contained therein, but because of the amusing video that reminded me of something, a tiny missed opportunity for a bit of scientific didacticism.

First, the video. It's called "Talking Starling — Spooky", and it is a bit spooky. Watch and listen.




That starlings murmur like this, spooking and odd though it seems, apparently is something that has been observed long enough in folk history for it to provide "a murmuration of starlings" as a collective phrase. (But far be it from me to usurp the work of the Language Loggers; I mean no linguification.)

I have not personally known this since forever, however; I only learned about starling vocalizations when I was reading the very entertaining and informative "Despicable Species", by Janet Lembke last summer. I wrote about the book here and in a book note.

At the time I praised the scienticity of the book–I still think highly of it–but there was one little bit in the book that bothered me a little at the time, but that I chose not to criticize, to avoid giving the criticism more weight than it deserved.

In her chapter on starlings, Lembke mentioned this phenomenon of starling's vocalizations that sound rather like human mutterings, very much like human speech that one can't quite make out. Lembke told an amusing story suggesting that starlings learned to murmur from sitting on telephone wires and hearing the faint conversations emanating from the wires, which sounds they mimicked.

It's a lovely poetic, folk conceit, but it's a poor and unlikely scientific explanation, since it is not the sound of speech that is being transmitted along the wires. What is carried on the wires is electrical impulses that originated in a microphone and can cause a speaker to recreate the original sounds that stimulated the microphone in the speakers handset. These electrical impulses in the telephone wires would not sound at all like speech unless one were listening with an induction coil and a small speaker. It seems unlikely that starlings have the technology.

Still, I thought the story was amusing and charming. I also thought Ms. Lembke presented the story with a little literary wink between the lines to let us know that she didn't really believe it either.

But maybe she didn't wink; maybe she did believe it. To be honest, I couldn't tell for sure but, since I had very positive feelings about the book otherwise, I just didn't mention it.

But now I will, simply because the video is amusing and somewhat spooky, and it reminded me of Ms. Lembke's charming story about murmuring starlings.

[added a few hours later:] Isaac tells me that in certain quarters a gathering of religious–probably Benedictine–is known as "a murmur of monks". He explains that this is likely because there is but one absolute injunction in the Rule of Benedict: "No murmuring!"

Posted on January 15, 2009 at 20.13 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Books, Curious Stuff, The Art of Conversation

4 Responses

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  1. Written by Wayne
    on Friday, 16 January 2009 at 08.59
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    Spooky, yes. I get the impression of deep plans. "to Mars…", "she said that…", "going to be some more…", and "to Mars…" again, again, and yet again.

    Thanks for the recommendation on Ms. Lembke. She's a shrewd observer, no matter how she couches her interpretations.

  2. Written by Glenn
    on Friday, 16 January 2009 at 11.34
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    I wonder if a listener understands it as murmuring in their own language, as is implied by the folk wisdom? Sounded like standard English to me, but what would a native speaker of German, or of Mandarin, understand?

    And if so, what about bilingual speakers? This could be the probe to test all sorts of messy things about which neurologists and linguists speculate!

  3. Written by jns
    on Friday, 16 January 2009 at 12.23
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    Wayne: This is clear evidence that we have been visited by those from other planets. Clearly the starlings were charged with spying for the aliens and this one has inadvertently warned us. To Mars!

    Glenn: I have no idea. Perhaps we can persuade the Language Log guys to look into it. I know little bits of French and Latin, and for some of the starling's speech I groped for possibles in those languages. On the other hand, none of it sounded like Dutch.

  4. Written by Rachel
    on Friday, 23 January 2009 at 08.29
    Permalink

    Spooky indeed. My husband just noted that this starling sounds like me when I'm absentmindedly nattering to myself when faced with a long list of "to do" projects in the morning at the bookshop!

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