what you talkin' 'bout willis?

This photo provided by the University of California at San Diego shows an undated photo of a starling, the sturnus vulgaris. According to a study published in the April 27, 2006 journal "Nature" , the songbirds can learn a basic grammar form, and differentiate between a regular bird "sentence" and one interrupted by a clause or a phrase. (AP Photo/University of California at San Diego, Daniel Baleckaitis)


i don't know about birds learning grammar BUT i do know i think starlings are beautiful birds. most don't pay them any attention. however, if one looks closely at them (they don't seem to fly away unless you're right on top of them) it looks like they are wearing a brown spotted coat containing every color of the rainbow underneath the spots.

Songbirds may be able to learn grammar
By SETH BORENSTEINAP SCIENCE WRITER

WASHINGTON -- The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.
Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular birdsong "sentence" and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature. It took University of California at San Diego psychology researcher Tim Gentner a month and about 15,000 training attempts, with food as a reward, to get the birds to recognize the most basic of grammar in their own bird language.
Yet what they learned may shake up the field of linguistics.
While many animals can roar, sing, grunt or otherwise make noise, linguists have contended for years that the key to distinguishing language skills goes back to our elementary school teachers and basic grammar. Sentences that contain an explanatory clause are something that humans can recognize, but not animals, researchers figured............