Toshitaka N Suzuki
Toshitaka Suzuki is an Associate Professor in the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo. He gained his PhD from Rikkyo University, followed by postdoctoral positions and fellowships at the University of Kyoto, SOKENDAI (Graduate University for Advanced Studies) and University of Tokyo. As founder of the world’s first “animal linguistics” laboratory, he integrates animal behavior, linguistics, and cognitive science to explore how non‑human animals communicate—and what this may reveal about the evolution of human language. Suzuki is best known for his groundbreaking work on the Japanese tit (Paridae), showing that their calls convey discrete meanings and exhibit compositional structure, fundamentally challenging assumptions about human uniqueness. For his groundbreaking research, he has won awards from the Japan Ethological Society, the Ecological Society of Japan and the Ornithological Society of Japan.
Tinbergen Lecture 2025: Animal Linguistics
Language has long been considered uniquely human, yet growing evidence suggests that many of its cognitive foundations are shared with other animals. Over the past two decades, I have studied the communication system of a small passerine, the Japanese tit, revealing striking parallels with human language. These birds produce referential calls that evoke specific visual search images in listeners and exhibit syntactic abilities to combine meaning-bearing calls into compositional messages. They also employ wing movements as symbolic gestures. Together, these findings advance animal linguistics by integrating animal behaviour, cognitive science, and linguistics, offering new insights into the evolution of language.