Language is one of the most remarkable characteristics that separates humans from other animals. Despite the many remarkable abilities of non-human animals, and despite the hopes and dreams of many animal lovers, animals do not have language like humans do—but they do have basic ways of communicating with each other, which we’ll explore later in the episode. In addition, no animal is able to acquire human language. Like many urban legends, such myths are widespread! Let’s start with a few animal communication systems; then, with what makes human languages different; and finally, we’ll explain why no animal has been able to learn a human language—despite what the Internet may suggest.
How Do We Know that Animal Communication Is More Limited than Ours?
Animal communication systems are both interesting and impressive, but very limited in what they are able to express. Some animals seem to “talk” to each other, leading people to believe that because we can’t understand animals, they may have a language as complex as ours. Yet, this is not in fact the case. We are, however, able to research and uncover much of what animals express to each other. For example, you may have heard that bees can do a communicative dance to convey the approximate location and even the general quality of a food source. However, bees have no options to “talk” about any other subjects. We know this because of experiments that made honeybees walk back to their nests. These bees described how long they traveled to get home—indicating a very far-away food source—but they weren’t able to explain that they had not flown back or what had happened. (2)
Another example is research using spectrograms to measure the amplitude and sound frequency of dog barks. This research shows that dog barks can be divided into sub-types that express different emotions such as wanting to play vs. greeting other creatures. However, it can’t confirm for certain any consistent meanings behind the sub-types of barks, or even that dogs perceive differences. (6) Other research does find an array of emotions that dog barks express, including distress calls, protests, play, threats, and warnings. (1) But, as we’ll see shortly, this repertoire is a fraction of that of human language.
A third example is spiders, which have an intricate systems of courtship, including both visual and auditory cues like dancing, vibrating, thumping, and signaling. These cues vary, depending on whether the prospective female is in or out of her nest, and can also be used to communicate aggressive emotions to other male spiders. (4). Yet, the gentleman spider’s mating ritual is fixed; it only has one way to explain itself to the lady spider. (2) In contrast, the thought of humans having only one single sentence to express affection for another would be very peculiar.
A way to sum up what these examples have in common is to say that they are stimulus controlled. Animals communicate when prompted to by stimuli like hunger, danger, and other immediate circumstances, but they do not have communicative choices, like people do. When we experience an environmental stimulus like someone accidentally running into us, we may shriek in pain inadvertently, but we have speaking options too, such as “Look where you’re going!” or “It’s OK—my fault,” or “Fancy running into you here!”
It is true that we have not tested the communicative competency of every animal out there. (3) However, the nature of human language and cognition are such that linguists aren’t holding their breath for the discovery of an animal communication system that even approaches human-language complexity or spontaneity. Human language is located in the language-centers of the brain, and these aren’t shared by animals.
Why Is it Inaccurate to Say That Animals Have their Own “Languages”? The Remarkable Features and Versatility of All Human Languages
We now know how limited animal communication is in what it can express. In contrast, one of the hallmarks that makes human language unique is its capacity for creativity and lack of limitations on what it is capable of expressing. (2) For example, people can talk about true things, or we can lie about things; we can discuss abstract concepts like beauty, war, or kindness. We can give each other directions for travel or instructions for how to bake a cake! Another ability we take for granted is being able to discuss stuff that does not exist in the present moment, or, that is not in our purview at the time of the utterance, or even something that will never happen, or could never be. Some linguists call this ability displacement, and note that it has never been observed in animal communication. (5)
People can lie and discuss abstract concepts.
Negation is another feature that is both exclusive to and present in every single human language—including those found in indigenous cultures without advanced technology. Animals are not able to express negation. (3) While some may say that their dog can “let them know” that it does “not” want to eat something by turning away from it, this is not the same as expressing negation grammatically (linguistically). For example, you could close your eyes, or be on the phone, and hear someone utter the words “I do not want to eat these anchovies on my pizza.” Even without context, visual information, knowing the person, or even seeing the person or the anchovies, you would comprehend this negative utterance perfectly, as long as you are a speaker of the language in which it is spoken. This is another distinguishing feature between human language and animal communication. We can easily combine displacement with negation to illustrate this: Imagine a dog explaining that it doesn’t mind that you are out of a certain doggie treat, because it liked that treat last year, but doesn’t like that treat so much anymore.
The number of words in human languages can vary, but human languages have hundreds of thousands of words. (2) Research on the jumping spider, on the other hand, finds 24 total signals that the male spider produces in order to entice the female spider to mate. (4) Other research finds 11 basic vocal sound types in wolves, and as few as 4 in some dog breeds. (1) Even if one were to argue that the basic sound types of the dogs and wolves could be akin to human language phones (those are discrete sounds, like consonants and vowels), instead of words, we know that the bark types aren’t combined to form meaningful units, the way sounds combine to form words, but rather are repeated over and over, one bark type at a time.
What About the Claims That Birds Can Learn Languages?
The way that parrots and other birds can imitate human language words is an impressive feat. So, what is really going on when birds seem to say words? Well, for one thing, and for the most part, talking birds’ utterances don’t mean anything. Bird-owning readers may agree that a bird might say “hello,” over and over and over, in a way that a person over the age of two never would, or, say “hello” when someone is leaving instead of arriving. Unlike when people say words, birds that say words are doing something more like playing a game.
People, again, choose what we want to say and when, as opposed to producing language inadvertently. When people are hungry, we can choose to tell this fact to someone, or we can choose to stay quiet about it. When someone arrives, we are free to greet the person, or ignore the person, and when someone leaves, we are very unlikely to part ways with a “hello.” These birds are brilliant imitators, but true human language is generated by choice and intention, not by imitation.
Humans can break words down into separate sounds.
Talking birds also can’t generate new sentences by combining words they have learned, nor can they segment the words they have learned. The utterances of birds can’t be broken down into discrete units. Think of a bird who has learned to say “Polly wanna cracker.” We could ask an English-speaking child to say the same sentence, and then say, “Now say ‘Polly.’ Now, say ‘want.’ Say ‘cracker,’” with great success, and without any crackers or Pollys nearby for visual cues. I’m sure you can see how asking the parrot to do the same would be an exercise in frustration. In addition, we could ask the child to make the “p” sound, or the “ah” sound in Polly, or the “l” sound, because human language speakers produce words by combining discrete sounds. Good luck asking a parrot to isolate each sound in a word or sentence it has learned!
But What about the African Grey?
A quick YouTube search will reveal remarkable abilities in certain African Grey birds, who seemingly illustrate the ability to answer questions about shapes and colors, and to have meaning attached to the words they have learned. Although the intelligence of these birds is truly astounding, and it is a step beyond the simple imitations of a Parakeet, it is simple to explain how unlike human language these feats are. Just compare this to the words that a dog can comprehend/associate with certain actions, like “sit,” “heel,” etc. Associating a word with its meaning is not the same as being a speaker of the language.
Further, while the African Grey can answer questions, you would be hard-pressed to find a bird who could ask a fully-formed question due to a desire to find out the answer! Also, one could argue that the way dogs know a walk is coming when they hear the sound of a leash jingle is no different from knowing what the sound “sit” means, after repeated exposure to the sound and the event co-occurring. In other words, animals can associate non-linguistic sounds with meaning, too, not only linguistic sounds.
Can Non-Human Primates Learn Languages?
We’ve all heard convincing stories about non-human primates, such as chimpanzees being taught human sign language. By now, you can probably think of many aspects of true human language that we would never see a chimpanzee reproduce. Human signed languages have grammatical markers that make a word plural, and ways to indicate verb tense, plus many other complexities, but those features have not been produced by any chimps.
An ape named Washoe learned more than 100 signs (5), and Alex the African Grey also knew more than 100 words, but even if 100 could compare to the hundreds of thousands in a human language, “knowing” a language is infinitely more than memorizing words in a dictionary. From this, we are led to the conclusion that no chimpanzee has ever actually learned a human language. Research also finds that these animals use what they learned from us to play or imitate (like the parrot Alex, who sometimes chose to name every color except the correct one on purpose, or the ape, who frequently continued to sign while humans signed to her—not showing much intention to communicate). (5)
Symbol Learning versus Language Acquisition
Finally, the most important difference in the animals to whom people have tried to teach language is … just that: They were taught! All of these documented cases of word associations learned by animals required extensive training over long periods of time, from the chimpanzee in the lab to your pet dog at home. There is no animal in existence who has learned any amount of human vocabulary with attached meanings by mere exposure alone—they are always explicitly and painstakingly trained to do this. This is a critical and distinct difference from the process through which human children—at ages that precede being able to use a spoon, or be toilet-trained—are able to comprehend and produce complicated sentences, with clear intentions and need to communicate, without any instruction at all. (For more information about how we know that children learn language by exposure and spontaneous interaction alone, check out this article.)
Without exposure to humans, primates in the wilderness do not sign, and parrots imitate whatever sounds they hear, such as the calls of other animals. This critical fact makes any animal accomplishment in the realm of human language a fundamentally different process, as does the fact that a chimp using sign language with other chimps is pretty far-fetched.
Take note, animal lovers! Establishing these facts about people and other creatures by no means claims that humans are “superior.” Animals do an infinite number of remarkable feats that we can’t do! It is common knowledge that dogs can smell and hear remarkably better we can, and that dolphins can hold their breath for far longer. However, just as people could not learn how to spin a spider web or see in the dark with the acuity of a cat, it is just as inaccurate to claim that a non-human primate could learn a human language at a fraction of the level that all humans do—especially when we understand and compare the process to the speed and effortlessness with which human children do so. (2) Some may even argue that hoping for non-human animals to talk is anthropomorphizing and equating speech with intelligence. It is more factual and accurate to evaluate and admire the intelligence of an animal by its own innate biological abilities, not by how much human language it can “learn” or respond to. In fact, the way humans and animals can bond and connect without language makes it all the more remarkable.
Syelle Graves has two master's degrees in linguistics. You can read more about her at syellegraves.com.
Sources
1. Feddersen-Petersen, D. 2000. Vocalization of European wolves and various dog breeds. Arch
Tierz, 43(4), 387–397.
2. Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. 2011. An Introduction to Language. 9th Ed. Wadsworth, Cengage.
3. Jackendoff, R. How did language begin? Linguistic Society of America.
4. Jackson, R. 1978. An analysis of alternative mating tactics of the jumping spider. The Journal of Arachnology 5, 185–230.
5. McWhorter, J. 2004. The story of human language part I. The Teaching Company.
6. Yin, S., & McCowan, B. 2004. Barking in domestic dogs. Animal Behavior, 68.
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