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I swear to god my little furry child adopted an English accent when I moved abroad. He had one friend in particular from yet another country. They got on well, but you could hear the difference in their accents when they barked and played around together (we held a doggie play date once).
Without speaking any language at all, they do understand each other and follow a certain hierarchy and code of ethics, for want of a better term. The dominant cat or dog is dominant and the others fall into their roles and they can communicate if they're angry or threatened or in distress very clearly.
I knew a guy who trained his two German Shepard’s using ... German ... of course. And they would only respond to commands in German.
I’m pretty sure my Aussie knows the difference in words like “deer”, “a dog”, “squirrel” & “bunny”, because she’s always out & about in the car with me & the kids so she’s related the sounds to what she sees out the window; “Aww, Mom; did you you see that lady’s dog?” Or; “Look; there’s more deer over there!”
The reason I think that is because I know her reactions. For instance; deer are a very serious matter. Whereas a dog in a passing car is a barking matter. Dogs in cars must be barked at until the car is out of view but deer elicit a stand at attention/intensely stare. You can almost hear her say; “If it wasn’t for this car; I would be herding you right now!”
I think a dog who is fluent in “Dog” would understand the “Dog” from a dog raised in Greece, or France, or India, etc ... because animals are more instinct based, while human language is learning-based. If a dog raised by a Japanese person in Japan accompanied a visitor to an American suburb; I think the dog would understand the; “The mailman is on our street!” bark from the other neighborhood dogs
A friend from Ukraine visited me a few years ago. Missing her own two cats, she was glad to meet mine. After oohing and ahhing over my kitty, who happily responded with purrs and knee rubs, she announced, "All cats speak the same language".
Of at least, according to her, all American and Ukrainian cats speak the same language!
I'm going to turn my contribution to this discussion over to an expert:
Hello folks, I'm Big Sam, the studly black cat who lives with Steve. Our communication is more tactile and kinesthetic, than verbal (that's touch and body language). So language isn't an issue. The foxy little Siamese pussycat down the street and I don't need to speak at all, to conduct our affairs, when I receive an olfactory invitation from her. Few people seem to understand the great powers of ESP that we cats have (as well as those uncultured dogs we have to endure).
Our superior capabilities really transcend any need for verbal language, as humans seem to require so much. The whole idea that cats and dogs would have different languages in other parts of the world, is really just a moot point.
Desmond Morris is an animal behaviorist who has written a good deal about this. Compare dog communication to human communication: to us, a smile is a smile and a grimace is a grimace etc whether we're trying to communicate with an Eskjmo or an African Bushman.
In fact, humans speak practically the same "language" as dogs: we both yelp with pain, growl in fear or anger, whimper when dejected, etc. Morris suggests that this is because we probably co-evolved with dogs, having domesticated the wolf early in our own evolution.
BTW- my current German Shepherd has the biggest vocabulary of any of the 8 dogs we've ever owned. She has also learned to spell: when the wife or I questioned each other about whether we had recently let her "out," she (the dog) would go into a panic, jumping and yelping, eager to go out. So we resorted to spelling O-U-T when questioning. It didn't take the dog learn to recognize that too. Now we amaze visitors by asking the dog " Do you want to go O-U-T?" and she start her dance of joy as she rushes to the door.
Last edited by guidoLaMoto; 03-16-2019 at 05:35 PM..
Desmond Morris is an animal behaviorist who has written a good deal about this. Compare dog communication to human communication: to us, a smile is a smile and a grimace is a grimace etc whether we're trying to communicate with an Eskjmo or an African Bushman.
In fact, humans speak practically the same "language" as dogs: we both yelp with pain, growl in fear or anger, whimper when dejected, etc. Morris suggests that this is because we probably co-evolved with dogs, having domesticated the wolf early in our own evolution.
BTW- my current German Shepherd has the biggest vocabulary of any of the 8 dogs we've ever owned. She has also learned to spell: when the wife or I questioned each other about whether we had recently let her "out," she (the dog) would go into a panic, jumping and yelping, eager to go out. So we resorted to spelling O-U-T when questioning. It didn't take the dog learn to recognize that too. Now we amaze visitors by asking the dog " Do you want to go O-U-T?" and she start her dance of joy as she rushes to the door.
Growing up I never had to teach my dachshund basset hound mix how to spell; all I had to do was look at our gun cabinet. The tail wagged and she jumped with anticipation.
But that was the environment that my, now long gone, Dashy grew up with and my feeling was that we both had the same passion to hunt. Today there are fewer hunters and fewer dogs that get rewarded for pursing their primal instincts; at least in the US. But there are areas in the world where they are still rewarded for doing what came naturally. So the question is if animals can talk to each other that have been raised in different environments? There are many variables because some of our animals have been domesticated and breed for certain characteristics for thousands of years. Sometimes even that is not long enough to break the evolutionary traits that the breed learned over thousands of years like this: https://wagwalking.com/behavior/why-...an-injured-dog. Of course over time animals introduced into a new environment will adapt of die. For the survivors that does mean to quickly learn the verbal/non-verbal language of the surroundings.
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