• Question: why cant animals learn to speak like us humans?

    Asked by nadiak to Panos, Michael on 25 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 25 Jun 2010:

      Wow popular question this..but i can see why because they do have intelligence..if not much problem solving..and i think thats the key…we can think in abstracts…we can hear some words and have a mental picture…bowl of apples…see we think of a bowl, some apples..maybe on atable depending what memories we have liked with the phrase bowl of apples..but there is a whole networkl of things linking of bowl of apples.
      Animals , we think, tend to respond to repetition.,. so if said bowl of apples and gave the dof a treat he would assoicate the noise bowlofapples with a treat..
      just like dogs who appear to speak..one used to say a version of “sausages” he would be rewrded everyime he said it so he would associate the saying with a treat…but still have no idea what it meant
      or in this case “I love you”

      Just like “walkies!” that would be the sound dogs associated with going out..after hearing it hundreds of times.and then going out 2 minutes later..They still have no idea what it means..justr what it is associated with

      I have added to the answer i gave before
      http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/600-699/nb635.htm
      that was another link about how animals do communciate
      to add to what i say below i think speech develops to match social complexity…if you don’t need to differentiate between safe and dangerous when it comes to food..you don’t say need to develop ways of communicating well done, medium rare, gone off, past its best, raw, lightly boiled, fried etc you see what i mean

      well here is a link about how animals can communicate ( i especially like the bee dance)
      http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/snot/can_animals_talk_and_what_do_they_say.aspx

      i thinkthe main barrier is we use words as symbols as things to replace real things…so we might say ball..which links in our mind to all the things that ball remidns us of…to an animal if they are trained..then they will go…”ah ball thats , that noise which means if i got fetch a ball i get a treat”…its not “ahh ball thats the word for ball”
      i think its that jump that is the main barrier..animals can learn what symbols or words get a certain response..but no evidence they can use words or symbols to rpelace an object in meaning….if that makes sense

    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 25 Jun 2010:

      There are many different reasons why animals cannot develop complex speech processes like we do. It is to do with the complexity of their brains and the anatomy of their vocal chords. A lot of animals have many different ways of communicating with different sounds that may be thought off as a kind of simple language but their brains are not a s complex as ours to develop different languages and speech.

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