Certain motifs in swamp sparrow songs can last hundreds, even thousands of years—evidence of a cultural tradition in the birds. Christopher Intagliata reports.

有些沼泽雀叫声的特色可以保持数百年，甚至数千年——这可以被看作是鸟类中存在文化传统的证明。克里斯多佛•因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）报道。

撰文/播音 克里斯多佛•因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译 许楠

审校 郭晓

Travel the U.S. and you'll hear English spoken in a multitude of ways. And it turns out the same can go for songbirds—specifically the swamp sparrow.

在美国旅游时，你可以听到许多种英语口音。研究证明，这对于鸣鸟，尤其是沼泽雀来说，也是如此。（沼泽雀的叫声）

Scientists have now used those swamp sparrow regional "dialects," together with computer simulations, to extrapolate how the sparrow's songs have changed and evolved over time. And they found that certain song motifs could date back hundreds, even thousands of years. 

科学家使用了这些麻雀的“方言”与计算机模拟功能，推测麻雀的歌声是如何随着时间而改变和进化的。他们发现有些歌声特征可以追溯到数百年前甚至数千年前。

"That's where, frankly, it blew me away, I have to say." Steve Nowicki, a biologist at Duke University. "If Leif Erikson had taken time once he discovered North America to get as far in as northwestern Pennsylvania, where I just was last week, he would have heard some—not many, but some of the same song types I was just listening to."

The study is in the journal Nature Communications. [Robert F. Lachlan, Oliver Ratmann & Stephen Nowicki, Cultural conformity generates extremely stable traditions in bird song]

“我得坦白说，这个结果使我大吃一惊。”杜克大学的生物学家史蒂夫·诺维斯基（Steve Nowicki）说。“如果雷夫·埃里克森（Leif Erikson）发现北美大陆、到达遥远的宾夕法尼亚州西北的时候不那么着急——我上周刚刚去过那里，那么他就会听到一些与我上周听过的一样的鸟叫声——虽然不是很多。”该研究发表在《自然·通讯》中（Nature Communications） [Robert F. Lachlan, Oliver Ratmann & Stephen Nowicki, Cultural conformity generates extremely stable traditions in bird song]。

Passing learned information from generation to generation—that sounds a lot like culture.  

将学习到的东西代代相传——这听起来很像文化。

"It is culture. These birds are showing a persistence of cultural tradition that is heretofore unknown and matches that of the best cultural persistence we might see in human culture."。

“这就是文化。这些鸟儿们正展示出对文化传统的延续，而这些传统是我们迄今为止所不知道的，它可以与我们在人类文化中见过的最好的延续相媲美。

But sparrows aren't as cognitively complex as humans, he says, implying that you don’t need human-type smarts to develop cultural traditions.

但是麻雀的认知水平并不如人类高级，史蒂夫说，这也意味着它们不需要人类程度的智慧来建立文化传统。