Earth271072 wrote:
Slimppu wrote:
Because they're stupid?
Because they're not capable of producing the sounds a human can?
Because they're ANIMALS, not humans?
sorry eggy,but i have to agree...
Sorry, Slimppu and Earth, I have to disagree.
Animals like dogs and cats can't speak like humans because they're not designed to, not because they're too stupid.
I've seen (and known a few myself) some dogs and cats which were smarter than many humans I've seen.
Though they can't recite our language, sometimes they act as if they understand it. They also speak to us in other ways. Their eyes, tails, ears, body language, and subtle sounds speak volumes when we listen.
Who's the smarter mammal? We can't understand their barks, meows and various other sounds nor can we recite their language in anyway obviously intelligible. They seem to be able to understand our words, tones, and voices, though their speech doesn't appear to be intelligible to us.
You've got a good point, Duke, Humans learn from other humans, animals learn human communication from humans. Humans can talk to other humans of the same language fine, and animals of the same species can talk to each other fine. But Animals speaking to humans doesn't work. Neither can a native born French person speak to a native born Japanese person. They can communicate somewhat, but they don't know each other's language. Is the French man dumb? Is the Japanese man dumb? No. Neither are. They're both intelligent human beings, they just don't know each other's native form of communication.
The same scenario works between a mute/deaf person and a normal person. One can't speak very well (usually, though some deaf people speak very well) and the other can speak perfectly. The mute/deaf person can speak sign language or write in brail fluently but the normal person doesn't know the first thing about it. Are either dumb? No. They're both intelligent.
I don't mean to offend anyone. I'm sorry if I did.