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Parrot Sapients; an idea I had
Topic Started: Dec 26 2010, 06:19 PM (1,231 Views)
Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

I recently "sold my services" (not in that way. Get your mind out of the gutter speccers!) to Dragon wasp. He has an interesting alien race in his project "Sodois III" and has the beginnings of a language (BTW, if someone is interested in hiring me for their own language...).

So I offered my (albeit primitive) linguistic services to him. I've started to work on pronouns for his language. For pronouns, you really need to figure out how each member of the species views each other and themselves (if the species an ultra-extreme Communist society (such as in "Anthem" by Ayn Rand), then completely eliminate the singular pronouns then. Etc etc)


"Wait a minute buster! What does this have to do with parrot sapients?"


I'm getting to that. Also, you all probably know by now that I have a big interest in sapient societies. Not so much designing them (mine usually always turn out too humanesque), but coming up with different societies and languages (as stated above).


"That still has nothing to do with parrot sapients. Don't make me angry Canis."


Your patience is greatly appreciated. ;)

The idea of parrot sapients has been greatly discussed around this forum for quite some time. They seem to be plausible. Their society could, in a way, develop like a human society (though, obviously, some technologies will not evolve. Cars will, in my opinion, be one of them).

In addition, they imitate human language, though their understanding of it is debatable. However, this proves that a parrot mouth and vocal chords could speak a human language. Likewise, humans could potentially speak a parrot language.


So, in the vein of all alt. evo projects, let's divert the timeline. Let's suppose that, while humans were evolving in Africa around 5MYA, sapient parrots were evolving in South America around the same time.

So I've got some questions I'd like to ask, and some I can answer right now:

1. What would cause parrots to evolve to sapience at this point in time anyway?

2. What kind of society would they likely evolve? Technology?

3. What would their interaction be with humans? Obviously, humans would still cross into America and parrots would spread across the equator, island hopping to Australia and maybe to tropical Asia.

4. Assuming this spread, what would happen to human society? With the prescence of another sapient (and an avian one at that), how would things like religion, government, civil rights, language, etc progress?

5. Again, assuming this spread, what would happen to human history? How would it change?

6. What would the language of the parrots be like? (I'll do my own research on the mouth and vocal chords, but help in this area is greatly appreciated. After finding out what sounds are possible for a parrot, I'll write the language, maybe trying some of their writing (would parrots use their feet or mouths?)

7. How much would the prescence of parrot languages affect human languages (and vice versa)?


BTW, I could very possibly turn this into a story, so help, questions, and input would be greatly appreciated.
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Zoroaster
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Fecund Fundiment
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Canis Lupis
Dec 27 2010, 01:33 AM
Nice pic. :D

So what are modern kakapo social groups like? I tried to find it on the internet, but it sent me to parrot owner forums.
Kakapo or Kea?

Kakapo aren't very social, unlike most parrots, they don't live as mated pairs, in the mating season the males form "leks" I think they're called... they try to attract a female to copulate with, and that's it...

David Attenborough covered Kea in a fairly recent documentary he narrated. I don't think they have "societies", but they are very socially interactive animals... see if you can find that doco on youtube maybe?

good luck with it - whether you go with Macaws (or maybe another lineage descended from conures or something?) or some other parrot lineage...
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Carlos
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Regarding flight and sapience, its worth to note that ravens and crows are very damn close to achieve true sentience, and yet they remain aerial.

I suppose the problem would be solved by an equilibrium between brain density and size. What matters above all is brain complexity over brain size (elephants having proportionally larger brains than humans, but being less intelligent, while hummingbirds have proportionally smaller brains than dogs, but more or less at the same intellectual capacity). Thus, I suppose a volant sapient derived from crows or parrots would have a proportionally larger brain, more specifically just an increase in size of the areas dedicated to thinking, and maybe those dedicated to flight as well is necessary), but the brain wouldn't increase dramatically in size.

Most likely the end result would have a poorer flight capacity, but there ya go.
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Jasonguppy
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Keas are incredibly smart. They can open locked car doors by jamming the lock mechanism and then pulling the handle. And if all esle fails, they rip out the window lining an BAM! the window falls inward;. People who have gone skiing in the S. Alps come back to the cars and sometimes find a kea family dismantled it and sliced the apolhestry. They would be prime candidates for sentience as they aren't the best flyers, so alot of their brain could go to other pursuits.
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Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

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