In a message dated 9/4/99 6:17:34 PM Pacific Daylight Time, MBlanchrd at aol.com
writes:

> An excellent book on human language is "The Language Instinct" by Stephen
> Pinker. Fascinating.

And in this book, Pinker describes how corvids, sturnids (let's not forget
the mynah birds!), and psittacids "speak". It has absolutely nothing to do
with any similarity between bird and human vocal apparatus--in fact, the
sounds they make are not even acoustically very like speech.

It has something to do with the birds' ability to create sound waves at
multiple frequencies simultaneously that, when the peaks and troughs line up
correctly, sound--to human ears--like speech. For a fuller account, and an
anecdote by the author about a similar experience, involving synthesized
tones, that illustrates the same process, I refer you to Pinker's book.

Take care and enjoy the long weekend! (Actually, I'm not personally sure
whether our north-of-the-border members get a long weekend or not; if so,
enjoy; if not, try to make the best of it :-)

-Nick P.
Olympia, WA