Animal Communication

Initiated by:
• Ceit

Details

We humans have always had a habit of thinking we are so very different from other animals on this planet of ours, and in some ways we are. We can't survive without tools, we enjoy negative experiences (sometimes, under the right conditions), we use elaborate sounds to communicate with those around us. Well, animals use sounds too, of course, but not to the extent that we do or with as much precision and variety. Or so we have thought: https://thehumanevolutionblog.com/2015/08/18/a-career-studying-the-sophisticated-vocabulary-of-prairie-dogs/ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc4s09N3L2h2lYeVD6pmax3f7qiHxyq3k Now, if animals can actually use language, couldn't we learn it like we learn other human languages? Couldn't we teach animals to communicate more like we do? It's certainly been tried, although as mentioned in the video series, it's never quite the triumph researchers are looking for: https://www.aaas.org/taxonomy/term/9/alex-parrots-final-experiment https://bigthink.com/life/ape-sign-language/ It might be that we are hoping for genetic closeness to open doors of communication in the case of apes. And as for birds, well, they do have a large capacity for noise, er, sound-making. But we might be mistaken about who is the best equipped to communicate with us more or less on our level and in our way. Who better than our loving companion animals? The millennia spent with us has definitely had an impact on dogs, and although cats have spent less time with us, anyone who knows a cat knows they pay close attention. Give these podcasts a listen and see if you aren't convinced your cat isn't thinking, "What a bunch of litterboxes!" half the time...and "Good humans" the other half. https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/lexicat1 https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/lexicat2