什么？鸟类也有方言？

Laura Molles is so attuned to birds that she can tell where birds of some species are from just by listening to their song.

劳拉·莫尔斯对鸟类非常敏感，她可以通过听一些鸟类的叫声来辨别它们的位置。

She's not a real-world Dr Doolittle. She's an ecologist in Christchurch, New Zealand, who specializes in a little-known area of science: bird dialects.

她不是现实世界中的杜利特尔医生。她是新西兰克赖斯特彻奇的一名生态学家，专门研究一个鲜为人知的科学领域:鸟类方言。

While some birds are born knowing how to sing innately, many need to be taught how to sing by adults -- just like humans.

虽然有些鸟天生就知道如何唱歌，但许多鸟类还是需要成年鸟来教它们唱歌——就像人类一样。

Those birds can develop regional dialects, meaning their songs sound slightly different depending on where they live.

这些鸟可以发展出地区方言，这意味着它们的歌曲听起来略有不同，这取决于它们生活的地方。

Think Boston and Georgia accents, but for birds.

想想波士顿和乔治亚州的口音差异吧，不过把对象换成了鸟类。

Just as speaking the local language can make it easier for humans to fit in, speaking the local bird dialect can increase a bird's chances of finding a mate.

就像说当地语言可以让人类更容易融入社会一样，说当地鸟类方言可以增加鸟类找到配偶的机会。

And, more ominously, just as human dialects can sometimes disappear as the world globalizes, bird dialects can be shaped or lost as cities grow.

更糟糕的是，正如人类的方言有时会随着世界的全球化而消失一样，鸟类的方言也会随着城市的发展而形成或消失。

The similarities between human language and bird song aren't lost on Molles -- or on her fellow bird dialect experts.

人类语言和鸟类鸣叫之间的相似性在莫里斯和她的鸟类方言专家同事这里并没有消失。

"There are wonderful parallels," said American ornithologist Donald Kroodsma, the author of "Birdsong for the Curious Naturalist: Your Guide to Listening."

《好奇的博物学家的鸟鸣:你的倾听指南》一书的作者，美国鸟类学家唐纳德·克罗尔德斯玛说:“这两者有惊人的相似之处。”

"Culture, oral traditions -- it's all the same."

“文化、口头传统——跟人都是一样的。”

For centuries, bird song has inspired poets and musicians, but it wasn't until the 1950s that scientists really started paying attention to bird dialects.

几个世纪以来，鸟类的叫声一直激励着诗人和音乐家，但直到20世纪50年代，科学家才真正开始关注鸟类的方言。

One of the pioneers of the field was a British-born behaviorist named Peter Marler, who became interested in the subject when he noticed that chaffinches in the United Kingdom sounded different from valley to valley.

这一领域的先驱之一是英国出生的行为主义者彼得·马勒，当他注意到英国的苍头燕雀在各个山谷听起来都不一样时，他对这一课题产生了兴趣。

At first, he transcribed bird songs by hand, according to a profile of him in a Rockefeller University publication.

洛克菲勒大学出版的一份关于他的资料显示，一开始，他是手抄鸟歌的。

Later, he used a sonagram, which Kroodsma describes on his website as "a musical score for birdsong."

后来，他使用了sonagram软件, 克鲁兹马在他的网站上把它描述为“鸟歌的乐谱”。

("You really need to see these songs to believe them, our eyes are so much better than our ears," Kroodsma said.)

（克鲁兹马说，“你真的需要看到这些歌曲才能相信它们，我们的眼睛比耳朵好得多。”)

In the 60s and 70s, scientists put baby birds into sound isolation chambers to see if they would be able to sing their songs, according to ornithologist David Luther.

据鸟类学家大卫·路德说，在六七十年代，科学家们曾把幼鸟放进隔音室，看它们是否能唱歌。

Scientists found that some birds -- the ones that learn their songs -- couldn't sing at all.

科学家们发现，一些鸟类——那些学会唱歌的鸟类——根本不会唱歌。

"They just continued like a baby babble for their entire life," he said.

他说:“它们就像婴儿一样咿呀学语。而且一辈子都在学。”

Those birds are known as "true song birds."

这些鸟被称为“真正会唱歌的鸟”。

In other birds, singing was innate.

而其他鸟类的歌唱是天生的。

"When they came of age they could just sing a perfect song no problem."

“当他们成年后，他们唱一首完美的歌曲是没有问题的。”

When birds are copying adults, scientists discovered, they sometimes make a mistake.

科学家发现，鸟类在模仿成年鸟类时，有时会犯错误。

That mistake in turn is copied by other birds, and a local dialect develops.

这个错误反过来又被其他鸟类复制，从而形成了当地鸟的方言。

That means that dialects can only exist in true song birds because they have a "learned oral tradition," says Kroodsma.

克鲁兹马说，这意味着方言只能存在于真正的鸣禽中，因为它们有“习得的口头传统”。

问题

文中提到世界不同地方的同一种鸟的叫声是一样的吗？

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