Foreign Language Animals

/ bensbitterblog

Not a very good one if you can meet him.

There is this guy in my department that can speak five languges. I find it almost unfathomable to speak another language. Not that it wouldn’t be cool to know one. It would come in handy when you wanted to spy on someone.

You see it all the time in movies. Two people speaking a different language while James Bond or some other action hero knowing exactly what they are saying, without them knowing it. Then he pulls out a phrase that lets them know he knows exactly what they are saying.

The looks on their faces when they reveal the plan to him is priceless. I would like to be one of the people that pulls that kind of thing off.

There is the classic Star Wars one where Han Solo knows exactly what Chewy is saying, or even C3PO knowing what R2D2 is saying. But just like any other foreign language, if you don’t know it, it sounds like a bunch of gobbledy gook.

Not sure what he is saying here.

This made me wonder the other day if animals from other countries learn different languages. Like, for instance a dog. Does a dog from a Spanish speaking home know dog Spanish? Does a Russian parakeet utter Russian phrases, and could it then learn English Phrases if brought to an English Speaking households?

I’m not really sure, but if Han Solo can learn Chewbaccian, could we learn dog Spanish? And why haven’t we learned to speak dog, and cat, and parakeet, or whatever. You know they can understand each other with just noises, why haven’t me made more progress in learning dog or cat at least. I mean, we’ve been with them since like the Egyptian times or whatever.

Just curious.

What do you guys think? Do dogs know foreign dog languages? Do you think we should start learning their language?

ARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Foreign Spy Ben

32 thoughts on “Foreign Language Animals”

  1. Every woman should learn Chinese and Korean because: Nail Salons – the Chinese and Korean spy rings. They are the perfect spy group because:
    1. You have no idea about their background, there’s just some printed piece of paper on the wall saying “certificate”
    2. You tell them all your business because you sit across from them for hours at a time while they trim your cuticles
    3. You call your friends and talk all kinds of smack despite the pedicurist 2 feet away (I’m short) rubbing your feet
    4. They talk to each other in front of you and you have no idea what they are saying.
    5. You happily log in to their salon wi-fi to save money. Now they have your data.

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  2. Now that you’ve mentioned it why haven’t we learned how to speak dog or cat by now? It doesn’t make us look very smart now does it. And I wonder if it makes the dogs or cats bitter feeling like our relationships have been very one-sided?

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  4. I speak a gibberish of about 13 made-up words to our two cats that sounds like a language from the Baltic Sea region of the world…and they completely understand what I am saying. And they also understand some English.

    Nice use of Mega Man with the spy Mega Man. I thought you would have used the Bitter Mega Man, but whatever.

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  5. Every time someone tells me how smart dogs are, all I can think about is how some of them eat poop. That said, you’ve got me wondering if there is a language barrier. Imagine having a Russian dog and an American dog in the same room. I wonder if they’d understand each other.

    Full disclosure: I don’t have a dog, so I’m therefore not going to learn dog language.

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  6. I’m not quite sure, but one thing I know is that cats and dogs can understand different languages (as much as they actually “can” understand a language) depending on where they live… And it did make me really bitter to know that a dog could understand Danish better than me when I traveled there…. Meh!!

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  10. We speak to our dog plainly and he understands. He even understands sarcasm. I don’t think he’d understand another language. I’ll experiment tonight.

    He speaks to us with body language and location (where he sits). We also know what many of his barks, yelps, and growls mean. He’s like a hairy 90 pound 1-year-old human.

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  11. Of course dogs in other countries know foreign languages, so they can understand their masters and still get up on the couch or dig in the trash anyway. I think the language they use to talk to each other seems universal, though. My dog makes a wide variety of sounds–sharp barks, playful barks, a “somebody’s at the door” bark, etc. He hums when he needs to go out, and sasses me with a “wo-wo-wooooo” when he doesn’t get his way. I should make a note to do a post on this before the idea gets away from me. 🙂

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  12. Cats speak human language, they just choose to ignore phrases like “No,” “Get Dow” and “What is the matter with you?”
    They always know who a pretty girl is though.

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  13. We have a poodle that was born and raised in Mexico. We think this dog is stupid because it doesn’t do what we say. But maybe we just have to find an English-Dog Spanish dictionary.

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