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Dogs have long been considered man’s best friend. They are wonderful companions, protectors, friends, and even family members to millions of people.
No matter how close you feel to your dog, however, it can never be the same as with a human since you can’t really communicate.
Sure, the dog can bark to get your attention, or turn its head in a cute way to convey certain meanings, but you just can’t have a real conversation with dogs because they can’t talk.
But what if they could?
That is what scientists at BARKS Lab at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary are researching. Specifically, they want to find out if it is possible for dogs to develop the ability to use spoken words, and if not, what exactly it is that they are lacking, which prevents it.
While learning about the ability of dogs to speak is important on its own, it would also help scientists to learn more about how humans developed advanced vocal communications. In a statement about the research, Dr. Tamas Farago, the leader of the BARK research group, said:
“Because we cannot experimentally recreate the conditions under which human speech emerged, comparative models are essential. Studying how domestication shaped dogs’ communicative skills may help illuminate the early cognitive and neural steps toward speech-readiness in our own species.”
The team looked at both the mental requirements and the physical anatomy required for true speech. Dr. Rita Lenkei is one of the lead authors of the study that they published in the journal Biologia Futura. She explained:
“The real question is: are dogs really on the road to verbalisation? Which skills are necessary for speech production and comprehension abilities that the dog might possess, and which skills do dogs lack? We aimed to clarify what is known, what is overstated, and what remains to be explored through serious scientific inquiry.”
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Speech is a complex process that requires multiple things to occur at the same time within the body. The brain power required to properly want to speak, as well as the biomechanical processes, including some type of vocal cords or another method to make the sounds.
The team confirmed what most dog lovers already know. Dogs are definitely very smart (some more than others). Dogs can understand many words, including their names, commands for various treats, invitations to go on walks or get treats, and much more.
In addition, dogs can easily tell the difference in people’s voices since they will come to their owner when called, even if they can’t see them, which is not always true of a stranger. Even changes in pitch within a voice can be discerned. Dogs can tell when their owner is excited, angry, or sad, just from the tone of voice that they are using.
The question then turns to whether they have the physical ability to create speech that goes beyond barking, growling, and howling. The team finds that dogs do have the ability to have “dynamic larynx movements” that make it so they can make many different frequencies of sound at will. The paper specifically says:
“dogs could still exhibit sufficient vocal flexibility to produce speech-like sounds.”
So, it seems that dogs do indeed have both the ‘hardware’ and the ‘software’ to speak, so why don’t they?
The researchers theorize that dogs may not have evolved to need advanced communications like humans did. While communication allowed humans to live and work together in societies that helped us to survive, dogs did the same without the spoken word.
Dogs are very social creatures, living in packs in the wild. They evolved to use body language, a strong leadership order, and other ways to manage their pack very effectively.
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Looking at wolves in the wild (the ancestors of dogs), it is easy to see that they are one of the most successful social animals out there. They work together very well, and their hunts are among the most successful of big game hunters.
So, in the end, it isn’t so much that dogs can’t learn to talk, but that they don’t have a need to do it. Whether they could be trained to overcome their preferred method of communication and adopt speech is not fully known yet, but they will likely need more study.
The study does point out the potential moral and ethical issues that could arise if dogs were taught to use human words as well, so that is another potential obstacle for another day.
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