Or they communicate in languages we cannot understand.
Even among human languages the sounds of some languages sound all the same to humans who are not native speakers of that language.
Chinese for example has a million words that all sound like "shi" and other tonal languages like Vietnamese are also indistinguishable to English natives etc. Japanese people treat R/L the same.
Elephants and dolphins have been known to assign unique names for each other.
Octopuses and other cephalopods communicate by changing the color of their skin, EVEN WITH SOME OTHER FISH! BBC's Blue Planet has an episode where an octopus and a grouper fish coordinate via color to trap prey.
Ants and other insects communicate via pheromones and "smell".
Are you seriously going to stick to a human-chauvinistic stance that only we have a "language"?
For anyone else whom the above awnsers absolutely nothing without googling what defines the boundary - A more verbose version of the above comment is that they communicate only simple, situational signals (like warning cries or information for action) and not using a symbolic, rule-governed system capable of abstraction, past and future tense, and infinite combination.
Of course, with all generalizations, this is sort of a lie, but no - whales, chimps and cephapods don't meet the official bar.
unknown|5 days ago
[deleted]
suddenlybananas|6 days ago
Razengan|6 days ago
Even among human languages the sounds of some languages sound all the same to humans who are not native speakers of that language.
Chinese for example has a million words that all sound like "shi" and other tonal languages like Vietnamese are also indistinguishable to English natives etc. Japanese people treat R/L the same.
Elephants and dolphins have been known to assign unique names for each other.
Octopuses and other cephalopods communicate by changing the color of their skin, EVEN WITH SOME OTHER FISH! BBC's Blue Planet has an episode where an octopus and a grouper fish coordinate via color to trap prey.
Ants and other insects communicate via pheromones and "smell".
Are you seriously going to stick to a human-chauvinistic stance that only we have a "language"?
nullsanity|6 days ago
Of course, with all generalizations, this is sort of a lie, but no - whales, chimps and cephapods don't meet the official bar.