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Do Animals Have Language Skills?

August 17, 2012 •

I read a fas­ci­nat­ing newslet­ter this morn­ing, writ­ten by a sci­en­tist who has con­ducted research to prove that ani­mals have well-devel­oped lan­guage skills. As the owner of two cats with obvi­ous social and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, I know that pets try very hard to com­mu­ni­cate with their human fam­ily mem­bers. Ani­mals can “speak,” if only we have the hearts and minds to “hear” them.

Pro­fes­sor Con Slo­bod­chikoff has con­ducted exten­sive research into the vocal­iza­tions of prairie dogs. His find­ings indi­cate that prairie dogs use a vari­ety of sounds to alert each other about poten­tial dan­gers from preda­tors approach­ing their bur­rows.

These ani­mals use dif­fer­ent and dis­tinc­tive sounds to warn about dogs, coy­otes, hawks, humans or other poten­tial preda­tors. They use spe­cial sounds to cat­e­go­rize their alerts based on whether the preda­tor is approach­ing on foot or from the air. His research also sug­gests that their alarm calls include sig­nals about prox­im­ity or the phys­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of indi­vid­ual preda­tors, such as dif­fer­ent col­ors. His book on what he has learned about ani­mal lan­guage will appear later this fall: Chas­ing Doc­tor Doolit­tle, Novem­ber 2012.

While my cats have a rel­a­tively lim­ited vocab­u­lary, Pro­fes­sor Slo­bod­chikoff writes that some herd­ing dogs have learned sev­eral thou­sand words, and can dis­tin­guish between words they know and unknown words based on their actions in research tri­als.

Pro­fes­sor Slo­bod­chikoff also spec­u­lates on the pos­si­bil­ity of future pet-owner trans­la­tion devices, so we can more clearly under­stand each other. There are many poten­tial appli­ca­tions, from the mun­dane to the impor­tant: from “Clean up my lit­ter­box, or I’ll leave some­thing nasty on your floor” to alerts about spe­cific intrud­ers or warn­ing a fam­ily mem­ber that the dog can smell can­cer cells (which research has proven is pos­si­ble).

I look for­ward to the day when pets and own­ers can under­stand each other, so pets will feel less inclined to act out and mis­be­have when their own­ers per­sist in ignor­ing what the pet wants to con­vey.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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