Why do animals never learn to speak English (or any other language)?

[wavetrain75]

I don't mean parrots that can be taught to speak some phrases.

But cats or dogs or ferrets that are raised from puppyhood in an English speaking family, are spoken to and hear the language constantly, but still never learn to speak it themselves.

 

[Tritium]

you need to visit YouTube since there are clips there with talking animals (cats and dogs)!

Thurmond

 

[mjmccarron]

I had a cat once that could cuss. He never said a word but some of the looks he gave left no doubt what he was saying. Swore like a Sailor!

 

[MrClean]

Well they can learn commands, some breads surprisingly smart. But you are talking about upper brain functions that really we don't understand why it works for us. Where is consciousness found, what is the threshold that must be reached. When does one become self? An interesting thing to do with a 3 year old is to get a couple dolls, have one doll go out of the room and have the other doll hide some candy in the room. Now tell the child to bring the other doll in and have them guess where the candy is. The child will go straight to the candy because they don't associate yet that because they no something the rest of the world doesn't necessarily know that.
Another factor is mouth structure. Even if dogs and cats understood the language 100 percent, could their mouths make the sounds that we throw together? There are societies on the earth that use sounds that I don't hear, can't hear because I didn't grow up hearing them. Think I'm handicapped? Ask an asian to say fa la la la la. It's a racist joke but it's just a combination that isn't used in their base language as much of their language wasn't used in my specific breed of Kansan. My Mexican co-worker has sylables I just don't catch. Then again, I don't catch a whole bunch of popular music and have to read the lyrics offline.
So if they knew the language, they may not be able to recreate it. Whales and Dolphins have languages, memories and higher brain functions that we speculate at but they don't have the mouth structure to make our languages.

And yes, youtube, not for the silly Animal imitates human speech videos but for the science based research videos posted on these subjects. Try the SciShow network, Vsauce and the likes first. If they don't have the specific info you are looking for, shoot them a message. They thrive by answering questions that folks are interested in and often are looking for the next subject.

 

[ScottyWarpNine]

Its all a matter of ability. First of all, the shape of animals mouths is not ideal for speaking a "human language." That's why when you see dogs talking in those youtube videos, it is only just understandable, and doesn't sound like if a human were to say it. That is because the shape of the mouth prevent them from properly forming the words.
The other aspect is whether or not the brain is sophisticated enough to actually communicate in the language. The animals on youtube are not communicating, they're simply copying noises. The closest we have ever been able to get with actually communicating with animals was when we trained Koko the gorilla to use sign language. While Koko has shown a mastery of sign language, and there is quite a bit of evidence to support that she actually knows what it means, she has never had the ability to ask more complicated questions or inquiries, which suggests a very limited comprehension.
Not to say that animals aren't smart, its just that human languages aren't really what they have evolved for.

 

[PsyBorg]

I think they have silently watched the world and learned that any country that has learned to speak English soon gets assimilated into the corporate merchandise driven money obsessed world we live in. Their silence and knowing glances to each other in parks and forests show they know they will inherit the earth so they merely wait and watch.

(yes this is sarcasm in case some people don't understand from text without facial expressions)

After though upon grabbing second cup of coffee this morning: Why should they speak when some have managed to get humans to feed them, bathe them, and clean up after them all while having a nice place to live all without speaking a word.

 

[Balu]

I had another interesting question pop up in my head...

Since we think our verbal communication is a lot more complex then let's say a dog's barking, why don't we learn to speak dog?

We should have the mental capabilities.

And then, there's always Koko:

 

[MrClean]

OH, I don't if you've come across this yet but Sperm whales sing their songs, they have different songs. They travel the ocean and have their own places. The songs change slightly over the years but what has been documented is when a Sperm whale crosses whatever boarder they cross under the sea they switch songs AND they switch to the song for that sea AND they switch to the point that they stopped at when they went the other way.
And they turn around and do it again the other way though most of the paths are more circular.
They are communicating, they do have a language, we just don't understand it. It changes so is that creation of a new idea into the song or is it a propagation of someones error into the song. They don't know yet.

Douglass Adams quote
"It's an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was the most intelligent species occupying the planet, instead of the third most intelligent. The second most intelligent creatures, were of course dolphins who, curiously enough, had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth. They had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger, but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for titbits. So they eventually decided they would leave Earth by their own means. The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop while whistling "the Star-Spangled Banner", but in fact, the message was this: [dolphin freeze-frames in mid-air] "So long, and thanks for all the fish!""

"It was assumed that men were smarter because of all the improvements to life, creation of finance, automobiles, digital watches that they had made while all the dolphins ever did was swim around all day, eat fish and make more little dolphins. The Dolphins meanwhile assumed they were smarter for exactly the same reasons."

I can't remember which of the hitchhikers guide series the second part was from.

 

[Katarienr]

It seems to me that it's all about physiology. Because of the structure of their bodies, cats can't make the same sounds like humans. I have seen some videos on youtube of animals making sounds similar to human words. I think the video was edited, but I'm not sure. It would actually be fascinating to communicate with animals. They would tell us their idioms, and people would look up their meanings here http://sentencestack.com. In the future, scientists will create a device to help us understand what animals are saying.

 

[Piotrsko]

OH, I don't if you've come across this yet but Sperm whales sing their songs, they have different songs. They travel the ocean and have their own places. The songs change slightly over the years but what has been documented is when a Sperm whale crosses whatever boarder they cross under the sea they switch songs AND they switch to the song for that sea AND they switch to the point that they stopped at when they went the other way.
And they turn around and do it again the other way though most of the paths are more circular.
They are communicating, they do have a language, we just don't understand it. It changes so is that creation of a new idea into the song or is it a propagation of someones error into the song. They don't know yet.

Douglass Adams quote
"It's an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was the most intelligent species occupying the planet, instead of the third most intelligent. The second most intelligent creatures, were of course dolphins who, curiously enough, had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth. They had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger, but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for titbits. So they eventually decided they would leave Earth by their own means. The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop while whistling "the Star-Spangled Banner", but in fact, the message was this: [dolphin freeze-frames in mid-air] "So long, and thanks for all the fish!""

"It was assumed that men were smarter because of all the improvements to life, creation of finance, automobiles, digital watches that they had made while all the dolphins ever did was swim around all day, eat fish and make more little dolphins. The Dolphins meanwhile assumed they were smarter for exactly the same reasons."

I can't remember which of the hitchhikers guide series the second part was from.

"So long and thanks for all the fish"

Paco the african grey parrot has a vocabulary of about 1,000 words and understands them, and can talk back to the trainer, but isn't double blind tested. Ditto for KOKO the Gorilla, but she spoke in sign language, even inventing new words that followed existing structure such as "mouth cry" after eating a jalapeno. We don't understand dogs or dolphins because we don't comprehend their points of context.

 

[PsyBorg]

I'm pretty sure they have seen and heard enough of how we talk and interact with each other to know they are better off not letting us know they can speak. They save their conversations for each other to poke fun at the silly things stoopid humanz doo

 

[leaded50]

i suppose the animals have heard all the crap a human can say, that they dont care aboput trying to duplicate such

 

[PsyBorg]

i suppose the animals have heard all the crap a human can say, that they dont care aboput trying to duplicate such

All I can picture is the animals after walking away from a human interaction doing a Red Foreman

 

[luvmy40]

Reported

 

[Bo123]

Reported

this is a 7 year old post? nothing wrong with it I assume.

 

[Piotrsko]

Old style of removing spammers, but does leave the "reported" comment since that person is real

If it loads, it is a functional thread that is still active

 

[luvmy40]

That's weird. This is not the thread I meant to report.

 

[tesseract]

That, and the fact that their vocal orifice isn't suited to make human-like sounds or noises.