How Magpies Learn to Talk - And What This Tells Us About Language Development
From TuneFM by TuneFM - University of New England
March 13, 2026 · 21 min
About this episode
The episode discusses how young magpies learn to communicate and what this reveals about language development in humans.
Young magpies learn their complex calls in much the same way that human toddlers learn sounds and words. We caught up with Dr Stephanie Mason from the University of Western Australia to talk about her research and what we can learn from it. Audio of the magpie calls generously provided by Dr Stephanie Mason. Study can be found at the link below: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.1620 Support the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/tunefm See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
People in this episode
Host: TuneFM - University of New England
Guest: Dr Stephanie Mason
Topics covered
- magpies
- language development
- animal communication
- research
- toddler learning
Keywords
- magpies
- language
- calls
- learning
- communication
- toddler
- research
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Western Australia
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