Cicadas do not have language. They create Nominal Combinative messages.
To experience that delightful sound, please click on the notes below.
Almost equally disturbing is the buzz of the 17 year Cicada. This sound is instinctive and hence, nominal, but the signal is combinative. In its clamor are combinations of clicks and scrapes.
When the order of the clicks and scrapes is changed a different message is communicated.
Like the crying of the child, which is a sign of a need for attention, the click and scrapes of the cicada are signs to help them arrange meetings that are critical to the survival of their species.
This is because, after 17 years in the soil as a grub, Cicadas emerge as winged insects with a mandate to procreate and a window of only small number of weeks in which to accomplish it.