A shared warning call heard from Australia to Africa and Asia appears to unite bird species across the planet — and may even shed light on the origins of human speech. New international research reveals that species living thousands of kilometers apart and separated by millions of years of evolution produce strikingly similar “whining” alarm calls when they detect threats near their nests.
The Battle Against Nest “Intruders”
The phenomenon is linked to brood parasitism — a strategy used by birds such as the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in the nests of other species. The host birds often end up raising the чуж chicks at the expense of their own offspring. For this reason, the early detection of parasites is critical for survival.
According to the study, more than 20 bird species across four continents use nearly identical alarm calls when spotting such threats. Remarkably, populations in distant regions such as Australia, China, and Zambia have never come into contact with one another — yet they “speak” in the same way.
A Signal Learned — but Rooted in Instinct
When a bird hears this alarm call, it instinctively approaches to investigate. It then associates the sound with the visual presence of a threat — a process researchers describe as social transmission.
Damian Blasi, a language scientist at Pompeu Fabra University and co-author of the study, explains that birds absorb information from their surroundings and learn when to deploy the specific signal. James Kennerley, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, emphasizes that communication is crucial when birds cooperate to drive parasites away.
Meanwhile, evolutionary ecologist William Feeney of the Doñana Biological Station notes that this particular call lies “somewhere between instinct and learned language.” As he explains, it represents an intermediate stage between the innate vocalizations commonly observed in animals and fully learned vocal units such as human words.
A Window into the Evolution of Language
The study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, is considered one of the most comprehensive investigations of brood parasitism to date. Its findings challenge the long-standing view that animal communication and human language are entirely separate systems.
For the first time, researchers have documented an animal vocalization that combines both innate and learned components, reinforcing the idea — originally proposed by Charles Darwin — that complex communication systems may have gradually evolved from simpler, instinctive sounds.
The birds’ “global alarm language” is more than an evolutionary curiosity. It may represent a living trace of the process through which nature transformed sound into meaning — and instinct into language.