Can Dogs Talk?
Can Dogs Talk?
I watched a very interesting documentary last night on PBS about whether dogs can talk. Of course, they do talk—they talk dog. There could be an interesting documentary on whether humans can talk…dog language. They might to a limited degree, but not as well as dogs. But the documentary was about whether dogs can talk human, i.e., whether they are bilingual. Everyone knows that dogs understand many human words (from 80 to 200 in some cases), but the question is whether they can communicate with humans using human words (they do pretty well with dog words). A new technology allows them to press buttons with their paws that make word sounds—food, walk, etc. They have gotten quite good at this, it turns out. I wish to make two points about this research. The first is that the reason dogs don’t talk to us in English (say) is that they lack the vocal apparatus—not the cerebral apparatus. They just don’t have the right kind of larynx and mouth; their brains are up to the task. Their understanding of English is not hooked into their motor systems in such a way as to produce speech; it isn’t a cognitive problem. A human with a damaged vocal tract might have the cognitive capacity to speak but not the anatomy, and dogs are like that. The reason they don’t speak is not like the reason trees don’t speak—that they are linguistically incompetent. In principle, we could fit them with a vocal prosthesis that enables them to convert their linguistic understanding into spoken words. Then you could literally talk to your dog and it would reply in kind: you, “What do you want?”; dog, “Walk”. This would completely change our relationship to dogs and it is within the bounds of possibility. It might even change our whole attitude to animals (see Dr Dolittle). They have the mental power in them already. This is quite predictable from the fact that they understand human speech (to some degree).
The second point is less technology-fictiony but more interesting. It doesn’t follow from the fact that dogs don’t or can’t talk out loud that they can’t talk at all. Not once did the documentary mention the possibility, which might be empirically verified, that dogs could be talking to themselves. I am morally certain that they do. They hear the English words in their minds, much as we do. For their minds follow their ears, which are exceptionally acute. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that when they want to go for a walk, they hear the word “walk” in their head, perhaps quite insistently; they just can’t say it. Or they can’t say it outwardly; inwardly, they might be saying it quite clearly. They could be having inner speech, with meaning, in English—along the lines of “Boy, could I use a walk right now!” or in dog English “Walk-walk!”. They can talk in English internally using auditory imagery. In fact, they have been doing this for centuries and in many human languages—they are veritable (silent) chatterboxes. Perhaps some scientist could do some brain scans to test for this. Do children go through a similar phase before they begin outer vocalization? It is a wonderful thought that your dog, your best friend, is hearing your voice inwardly all the time, perhaps conversing with you in some primitive way—who knows what the dog imagination is capable of? We know that dogs dream and the odds are that they experience auditory vocal imagery: maybe they converse with their owners while dreaming. So, actually, they are far more linguistically active than the researchers believe; it just takes place in their inner world. Do they dream of asking their owners to take them for a walk—in English? That is not disproven by their inability to vocalize outwardly like a human. Can dogs talk? Yes, they do it all the time and have been for thousands of years, but secretly. Perhaps this is why they pick up the trick with the buttons quite quickly—because it simply externalizes what has been going on internally their whole life.[1]
[1] Of course, no philosopher was consulted in this documentary. But, you know, we can actually talk. Chomsky makes the point that most human linguistic activity takes place in silent speech not in overt behavior.
All correct. You can see it in my dogs’ eyes and in their body language that they are trying to tell me something very important. Like most dog owners, I’ve boiled it down to four needs/desires – love, food, bathroom, and going for a walk. But I often wonder if they have deep metaphysical questions that want to, but just can’t, articulate – e.g., Where did I come from?, Where did all this stuff come from? Will I live forever? Will you (human) live forever? etc. If so, I feel very bad for them.
Do you have any sense of their having inner speech (in English)? Not that you necessarily would even if they do.
I think they do – probably at the level of a 3- to 4-year old human. It’s clear that they can engage in relatively simple reasoning, learn what works and what doesn’t work, understand cause and effect, and have strong moral intuitions/principles. All of these capacities leads me to think that they may very well be able to ask themselves deep metaphysical questions.
But my question is whether they ask themselves questions in English–that is, in the language they hear their owner speak and they understand. Do they fantasize about going for a walk, say, in a human language?
I think that your hypothesis “Walk! Walk!” is more plausible than “I would like to go for a walk”. More like a 3-year old human than a 10 year-old human. Or like a human adult who has only very basic knowledge of another language – e,g., “paseo – si!”
Yeah, that was a joke.
The Wikipedia article “Talking bird” begins, “Talking birds are birds that can mimic the speech of humans. There is debate within the scientific community over whether some talking parrots also have some cognitive understanding of the language.” The article has a section titled “Cognition controversy.” It mentions Nim Chimpsky, who has his own Wikipedia page.
It is an interesting question how much of the universe’s mass could be transmuted into biomass.
Birds might be like tape recorders that don’t understand a word they are “saying”.
@Ken re “I’ve boiled it down to four needs/desires: love, food, bathroom, and going for a walk.” Not sure what breed do you have at home, but omitting desire to play is a massive oversight. My canine loves to play with us and simply asks for it when he feels like it — vocally or bringing his toy. His range of vocally expressed emotions is rich too.
On behavioural grounds alone it is absolutely clear to any dog owner that dog can “talk” in the sense Colin describes it.
Yes – you’re right, forgot play. I also forgot a sixth one: alarm. The two biggest alarms: “OMG – Somebody’s at the door!” and “OMG – Squirrel!”
Cat speech all comes down to a general purpose “What about my needs?”
But do dogs have free will? Meaning if they possess our faculty of language do the other higher capacities join along?
You are assuming humans have free will. I think dogs have the freedom to choose what they want, as do humans, but not freedom from their past.