Why Charming Billie Can't Read
...or John Henry either.
It's always been the defining question for me--why can't dogs read--the separator between why we're human and why dogs are...well, not.
Although lots of people put forth the notion that it's tool use that separates man from not-man, I've seen dogs use tools. And we already know crows do, too.
Even if they wanted to, dogs are physically incapable of forming the sounds necessary for speech (if you ever write an SF story about a talking dog, you'd better take this into consideration). According to this article, Gene Mutations Linked to Language Development in the Washington Post, current research suggests that about 50,000 years ago a particular mutation gave human ancestors the kinds of physical control over mouth and throat muscles necessary to actually talk.
Of course, muscle control alone doesn't explain language. Dogs certainly have an urge to communicate (mine generally try to do it by staring at me as hard as they can--which is actually a strong enough communication device to wake me from a sound sleep) and they can learn the meaning of words and sentences and relate one action to another, seemingly unconnected, one. And contrary to popular opinion, dogs have at least some understanding of past, present and future.
But dogs are really all about the concrete, all about what they can see and feel and touch. Dogs are not philosophers. And it's the abstract stuff and the need to articulate it rather than, 'Game here, go kill now,' that leads to language.
Comments
Daniel Pinkwater claims that one of his wife's dogs broke the code of English. He gives compelling anecdotal evidence in support. I'll see if there's a link available anywhere.
Conversely, there's more and more research being done on the way humans communicate through subtle facial clues and body language. I'm increasingly coming to believe that we rely on field awareness as much as or more than on verbal communication, and/or that some people have a better innate capacity for that kind of physical-cue perception over verbal-cue comprehension.
Been thinking about this a lot with relation to people, for the stuff I'm writing now, but this is really cool--I hadn't thought about how great an example animal communication is (us to them, them to us). Thanks for the brain fodder!
TM(tm)
Posted by: TM(tm) | August 20, 2002 04:53 PM
I would love that link! Let me know if you find it. I have a possibly loopy theory about consciousness in dogs too that I have to remember to post here sometime.
Posted by: debco | August 20, 2002 07:33 PM