Dogs and Language (Full Version)

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RiotGirl -> Dogs and Language (7/9/2005 2:58:39 PM)

In college we had a big discussion on dogs and language. Supposedly, one of the things that puts us higher up on the chain is the fact that we have language. So dogs dont have language, but as i was sitting outside teaching my dog words, it just seems as if we CAN teach them language. Or something close too. Reminded me of my last dog. i literally spoke to the dog and knew that he "got" what i was saying. Boy is it frustrating trying to train a new dog to be up to par to my last dog. English cocker spaniel vs golden retriever. My last dog knew what a "ball" was (and really should of been a member to Ball annoymous) Find the ball, wheres the ball, get the ball, i dont want the ball, ect. In trying to teach this dog to connect the object ball with the word ball. i put a couple of things down, showed the dog the ball, repeated the word and told it to "find the ball" among the objects. In teaching the dog what a "ball" is, could i persay teach the dog to associate almost every object with a word? Actions words too, like find, look, bring it to me, ect.

Isnt all that persay language? Isnt that how we teach the little ones language? To expand on the idea, we could actually teach our dogs a multitude of languages. Of course by teaching them to associate the words with objects and stuff. and its not even a one sided convo. Body language is a big factor in language, if one tunes in its easy to know what their (dogs) responses are.

Granted i never had to actually sit down and "train" my cocker to understand me. He just seemed to pick it up naturally. Though the off the leash was a training persay, but he also picked that up pretty easy to where i was completely confident in walking the dog across a busy intersection.

Isnt this all essentially language? Other then the vocal chords, isnt it pretty much the same thing?



mossy -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/10/2005 8:12:11 PM)

Riot Girl i agree because their language is an unspoken one?
Does it make it any less intelligent? When at times they are more intelligent then some humans are? People say cats cannot be trained? my son trained our cat to fetch, and bring the item back and lay it at his feet just like a dog. the cat knows when i am ill, if
my stomach hurts? she lays by my stomach and sleeps there. Her intuition may not be in verbal language, but it is stronger than human intuition. Your description of the ball, and the dogs understanding. How about the animals sensing of the oncoming tsunami.
(i realize i diverted a bit here) Thanks Riot Girl you bring to mind this saying.
"practice love first on animals,,,for they are more sensitive"



AAkasha -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/10/2005 8:26:17 PM)



Dogs have their own language. There's a book called "How to speak dog" that explains it pretty well.

A dog that is barking when playing is communicating a different thing than a dog barking at strangers walking up to the house.

They also communicate a lot to each other via body language.

Akasha



Ssilver -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/10/2005 9:24:18 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: RiotGirl

Isnt this all essentially language? Other then the vocal chords, isnt it pretty much the same thing?


It's communication. The vocabulary is inherently limited though, and that is why human language is much more powerful.



Lordandmaster -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/10/2005 9:32:28 PM)

It's not language because there's no grammar. You might call that a narrow-minded stipulation, but if any kind of communication could qualify as language, then every animal on earth speaks its own language.



knees2you -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/10/2005 10:57:37 PM)

quote:

It's not language because there's no grammar. You might call that a narrow-minded stipulation, but if any kind of communication could qualify as language, then every animal on earth speaks its own language. LAM


We all speak a different Language, even pets.

I spek in tounges~~[:)][:)]

Sincerely, Ant

[image]local://upfiles/19655/C5E7805A686E43A3976CD4DD5C9BA636.gif[/image]



onceburned -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/10/2005 11:06:03 PM)

quote:

I spek in tounges~~


But do you speak in dog tongues? [sm=tongue.gif]



pleasureforHim -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/11/2005 10:00:32 AM)

quote:

It's not language because there's no grammar. You might call that a narrow-minded stipulation, but if any kind of communication could qualify as language, then every animal on earth speaks its own language.


The descendants of Noe had migrated from the "east" (Armenia) first southward, along the course of the Tigris, then westward across the Tigris into "a plain in the land of Sennar". As their growing number forced them to live in localities more and more distant from their patriarchal homes, "they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven; and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands." The work was soon fairly under way; "and they had brick instead of stones, and slime (asphalt) instead of mortar." But God confounded their tongue, so that they did not understand one another's speech, and thus scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city.

Genesis 11:1-9

Language is a fluid concept; the notion that non-humans have language is intriguing and distrubing at the same time. If dolphins communicate, does it diminish our right to use kill nets to gather tuna? If monkeys have language, does it giminish our right to experiment on them and then euthanize them? If all men spoke a universal language, would there be fewer wars? If men and women communicated better, would there be fewer divorces...or fewer marriages?

pleasureforHim



AAkasha -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/11/2005 10:12:10 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pleasureforHim

quote:

It's not language because there's no grammar. You might call that a narrow-minded stipulation, but if any kind of communication could qualify as language, then every animal on earth speaks its own language.


The descendants of Noe had migrated from the "east" (Armenia) first southward, along the course of the Tigris, then westward across the Tigris into "a plain in the land of Sennar". As their growing number forced them to live in localities more and more distant from their patriarchal homes, "they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven; and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands." The work was soon fairly under way; "and they had brick instead of stones, and slime (asphalt) instead of mortar." But God confounded their tongue, so that they did not understand one another's speech, and thus scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city.

Genesis 11:1-9

Language is a fluid concept; the notion that non-humans have language is intriguing and distrubing at the same time. If dolphins communicate, does it diminish our right to use kill nets to gather tuna? If monkeys have language, does it giminish our right to experiment on them and then euthanize them? If all men spoke a universal language, would there be fewer wars? If men and women communicated better, would there be fewer divorces...or fewer marriages?

pleasureforHim


Ants have a sophisticated way they communicate and build their own heirarchy and societies, bury their dead and store food. Should we not kill ants?

Akasha



Lordandmaster -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/11/2005 11:21:12 AM)

Well, whether we should love animals and whether animals have language are two separate issues. Regarding the second question, grammar is a crucial criterion because it allows humans to express an infinite variety of thoughts using a finite lexicon. Animals cannot communicate an infinite variety of thoughts. But that hardly means I think they don't have needs of their own.

Edited to add: Actually I meant this more in response to pfH than to Akasha.



pleasureforHim -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/11/2005 4:01:01 PM)

quote:

Well, whether we should love animals and whether animals have language are two separate issues. Regarding the second question, grammar is a crucial criterion because it allows humans to express an infinite variety of thoughts using a finite lexicon. Animals cannot communicate an infinite variety of thoughts. But that hardly means I think they don't have needs of their own.

Edited to add: Actually I meant this more in response to pfH than to Akasha.


Wow..my own personal Lam post. i must be less dim than i thought. So here's my question to the thread readers: how do we know the complexity of a language we do not speak? Until we found the Rosetta Stone, we could not make sense of Egyptian hyroglifrics. i realise there will almost certainly never be a "Rosetta Stone" that enables whales or dolphins or dogs to translate their languages into a human language -- but how can we be so sure they have no concept of past tense? Of future tense? Of "you" and "i"? And if they have these concepts, even in a rudimentary form, can we so easily say they have no grammar, and therefore no language?

BTW, i'm no PETA member; i still lust after a mink coat. i was just piqued, intellectually, by the thread and its posts. So i'm not invested in being right or wrong. i'm not really even taking a position..just asking questions that i think are kinda interesting.

pleasureforHim



Lordandmaster -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/11/2005 4:05:45 PM)

There are actually some very interesting studies of animal communication. Of course it's not possible to know whether baboons use grammar without being a baboon, but the observed repertory of their signals is much too small to have anything approaching grammar.

Once the whale code is cracked and people can show me whale grammar, I'll change my mind.



domtimothy46176 -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/11/2005 6:29:22 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: RiotGirl

Isnt this all essentially language? Other then the vocal chords, isnt it pretty much the same thing?


Not to parse words, but while it ~is~ communication, it's not neccessarily language. Language requires the ability to correlate ideas with symbols, something dogs and cats don't have the cranial capacity to do. It ~is~ interesting to note, however, that some of the larger primates have been taught human sign language. For all intents and purposes, they ~can~ speak for themselves, although at the level of a young child. I'm out here at the very edge of my footing so I'll stop before I find I'm talking out of the wrong end. Perhaps one of our more studious associates will chime in with a response more firmly planted in the nuances of communication and/or language.
Timothy



pleasureforHim -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/12/2005 8:28:36 AM)

quote:

There are actually some very interesting studies of animal communication. Of course it's not possible to know whether baboons use grammar without being a baboon, but the observed repertory of their signals is much too small to have anything approaching grammar.

Once the whale code is cracked and people can show me whale grammar, I'll change my mind.


Obviously, Lam has not seen "101 Dalmations" with its "chain of barks" scene, LOL. i get so much soild information from Disney.

The flaw in Your logic, as i see it Lam, is that we'd be measuring a primate or whale language against human language standards. The odds that they would have developed a language that mirrors ours but is merely a repetorire of barks is not very high. To send humans to observe and try to callibrate the comminication skills of whales or dolphins or dogs makes no more sense than to send dogs to to observe human language.

Now i want to throw in another interesting question. There are dogs trained to aid epileptics, who can sense a fit coming on, so the sufferer can get to a safe place and lie dowm. No one knows how the dogs are doing it, but programs to train such dogs are established and running in several places. We accept that dogs will be able to detect drugs, living persons, cadavers, and other materials, and write it off because we know dogs have highly developed olafactory senses. What we fail to explain is how we train dogs to select one scent out of thousands that interest him and endanger hinself to follow it.

Dogs used after 9/11 at the World Trade Center site were treated for burns to their paws repeatedly and went right back to work. What would make an animal act against its best interest, to please a human? Dogs who work k9 units repeatedly chase down suspects and are willing to be struck, beaten and shot in order to control a suspect or protect their human companion. Where does such devotion come from? Devotion to another species? It is clearly more than just that the human companion provides food, water and safe housing.

The stories of cats and dogs saving their human companions are legion. In many cases, such as a fire, the animal may also be saving itself, but that is not always the case. There are accounts of dogs and cats arousing the household because of carbon monoxide -- odorless, silent, and deadly. How did the animal know?

i only ask the question to broaden the scope of the thread. If animals are capable of such interactions with HUMANS, what must be their powers of communication within their own species?

pleasureforHim



softandshy -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/12/2005 9:00:48 AM)

i've been watching this thread with interest because i'm a dog trainer. i train service dogs to help folks with multiple disabilites and have a service dog of my own.

The definition of language does include grammar, but personally i believe that dogs do have language, not just communication. The subtleties of it's structure may just be eluding us. As for mental capacity, as humans we only use about 10% of our brain, and we don't really understand that much about the functions of the brain as compared to other areas of study. What's to say that an animal with a smaller brain isn't capable of greater actualization, better use of those areas it does have use of, perhaps even usage that is not yet discernible by human scientists because the thrust of our focus lies in a different direction from how dogs think. Here's a huge leap, but what if the grammar in dog language was completely foreign, like the willfull release of pheremones in coordination with the outward signs that we are aware of?



softandshy -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/12/2005 9:17:34 AM)

Incidentally pleasure for Him, and this is just because i find it fun:
the bark chain exists although i couldn't tell you if it's saved any puppies :)
i've trained siezure alert dogs. It must be done when they are pups because they're actually picking up on an energy discharge and not all dogs are sensitive to it but many pups are. If not exercised it's lost with time. The sensitivity in dogs that can feel it grows, like trust, as the bond does.
i don't think carbon monoxide is odorless, only odorless to humans
a friend's dog worked (therapy) at ground zero shortly after 9-11 helping the survivors and rescuers. She was so empathically connected that she had to be made to eat and rest, or at least leave the workers. Even with that, she lost ten pounds and after three years she was still having stress reactions.
and my dog has saved my life, actually breaking skin to make me move when the ceiling began to fall in on our apartment at two in the morning. Of course, in the training philosophy i follow, that would be because service dogs need the ability to think independently rather than just following commands, the trust must be maintained, but a dog that can willfully disobey is capable of saving it's human's life and it's own if that human is, for any reason, not quite as aware as usual.



Lordandmaster -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/12/2005 10:25:25 PM)

Well, as I said, it could be the case and we would never know about it, but the realities of dog behavior make it seem highly unlikely. Of course you know more about how dogs behave than I do, and I'll grant that they're capable of communicating with each other (and with other species) in complex ways, but I really don't see in them creatures capable of uttering an infinite variety of statements--whether by barking, making somatic signals, releasing pheromones, or any combination of the above.

One thing I've found very interesting is that chimpanzees who have been taught sign language can go ahead and teach at least some elements of sign language to other chimpanzees. But if they really had massive innate language abilities, such chimps would invent their own nuances to sign language, and start communicating with each other in a new language that HUMANS would have to learn. (That's exactly what human beings do in the same situation: they create what is called a "creole," in other words a full-fledged language invented by native speakers of a pidgin.) I don't think anything remotely resembling this has ever happened among chimpanzees.

Lam

quote:

ORIGINAL: softandshy

The definition of language does include grammar, but personally i believe that dogs do have language, not just communication. The subtleties of it's structure may just be eluding us. As for mental capacity, as humans we only use about 10% of our brain, and we don't really understand that much about the functions of the brain as compared to other areas of study. What's to say that an animal with a smaller brain isn't capable of greater actualization, better use of those areas it does have use of, perhaps even usage that is not yet discernible by human scientists because the thrust of our focus lies in a different direction from how dogs think. Here's a huge leap, but what if the grammar in dog language was completely foreign, like the willfull release of pheremones in coordination with the outward signs that we are aware of?




Ssilver -> RE: Dogs and Language (7/12/2005 11:00:29 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: softandshy

The definition of language does include grammar, but personally i believe that dogs do have language, not just communication. The subtleties of it's structure may just be eluding us. As for mental capacity, as humans we only use about 10% of our brain, and we don't really understand that much about the functions of the brain as compared to other areas of study.


We may only use a small portion of our neurons at once, but the brain as a whole isn't 90% useless matter. There is no reason to have a large brain with the accompanying caloric and structural requirements if we only really needed 1/10 of it. Imagine having every neuron in your brain fire at once...I'd imagine it would cause a seizure that you may not recover from.

As far as dogs having language, consider me going to China and yelling out a warning shout to someone about to step into the street (I don't speak Chinese, btw.) Do you think that they might pause and look around? I'd guess they would, and that is more analogous to what I would equate dog communication to.



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