Why do we say non-human animals can't talk?

[TroutDude]

Originally Posted by Arach Angle

talking and communicating are two different notions.

Humans have a more complicated set of communications methods.

animals do communicate. we are animals, we are just an animal with the most complex processor this earth made ... to date.

Yep. Far as we know, anyway.

[NHartphotog]

The ability to "talk" and the ability to "communicate" are 2 totally different things.

[Lodestar]

For a year now I have been amused by watching videos of a rescued cockatoo named Gotcha on Youtube. His vocabulary is huge though his use of the language is sometimes garbled. His pronunciation isn't always clear but over time I've begun to understand better what he is saying.


Sometimes he talks for quite a while about things that are probably referential to memories and so I'm unclear what they are about in his current context. I believe he may have lived on a boat in the tropics because he has talked about "bring up the diver"


But I have seen videos where he plainly refers to "the day I was rescued" and heard him say, "The poor boy. He has nobody."


He also cracks jokes. For instance, in one video when outdoors with his new owner she says, "It smells good out here. Like a restaurant" and he says, "I smell a diaper" and then he laughs. Then thinking of the restaurant, I suppose, he says he wants the "porky rice."


Later he sees a plastic bag blowing down the street and she asks him, "What are you looking at?" "A dead bag" is his answer. Very clever!


Here's a sample of him plainly insisting that he's ready to go to bed in his cage:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLFwoXJpD1s


I don't know what the IQ of a cockatoo is but I know that an African Grey has the IQ of about a six-year-old child.


Watching Gotcha use the language so creatively and spontaneously, noticing what appear to be a sense of humor and mood changes, gives me pause for thought about how we treat animals. Maybe we shouldn't call stupid people "bird brains."

[Sonic_Spork]

Animal intelligence has always been interesting to me. Some birds are awesomely intelligent. I can't explain though, why I don't like dolphins that much (or find them all that interesting) but cephalopods on the other hand captivate me. I think one thing that is impressive to me with them (cuttlefish, octopi, certain squid) is that despite having no nurturing parent or other teacher, they develop some pretty complex smarts. And their nervous system is so...alien. It is a whole different kind of intelligence going on and it intrigues me.

And then there is my cat...he talks, but most of what he actually has to SAY he conveys more eloquently in body language. Mostly his talking or singing is to get my attention, so that I look at him and see what message he is trying to convey. It's still pretty basic stuff, but he certainly gets his point across with his eyes, ears, tail, and posture. It is said that with the exception of mating, fighting, and kitten-interactions, cats don't really meow at one another. They have learned to use vocalizations to "communicate" with humans. Some say this means that they see us as big dumb kittens...I think they just do it because it works. We reinforce it when we pay attention to a meowing cat.