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Asked by anon-200925 to Rosemary, Oliver, Leigh, Jordan, Hannah, David on 1 Mar 2019.
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Oliver Gordon answered on 1 Mar 2019: last edited 2 Mar 2019 12:00 am
From a biologists point of view, because they don’t have a large enough brain nor the anatomy to make the sounds we do. What we call “speech” is very much to do with how humans evolved – our survival of the fittest is to stick together in groups (so towns, cities, schools, and so on!). Animals communicate in other ways – cats meow and chatter, bees make smells, dogs bark… That we “talk” is evolution at its finest.
From a cat lovers point of view, animals absolutely can communicate cross species – my cat sat on a cushion, locked eyes with me, then meowed about 4-5 seconds later when he wanted me to take him to bed. Monkeys have even been seen to communicate emotions (happy, sad, hungry, and so on), with humans before. EDIT: And of course learn basic sign language.
Emotion and expression is incredibly cool, and it’s very much an area of science being researched by biologists and psychiatrists.
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David Walker-Sünderhauf answered on 2 Mar 2019:
Oliver gave an amazing answer here. 🙂 The only thing I can maybe add is that communication with each other isn’t just something animals do. Even bacteria can “talk” to each other. They do something called “quorum sensing”, where they release chemicals to let other bacteria of the same species know that there are more of them around. Plants have communication systems of sorts too.
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Leigh Kesler answered on 4 Mar 2019:
Great answers from Oliver and David. I will also add that we are still learning how animals’ brains work, and discovering that even though animals can’t talk to us, they experience many of the same emotions and thoughts as humans. They also communicate in their own ways. Also, different animals have different levels of emotions and thoughts.
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