The Quest for Symbolic Communication in Non-Human Animals

Book excerpt: Human language is unique among animals. We assume that complex cognitive capacities in general and language in particular evolved gradually and thus are manifest in different kinds and/or degrees in other animals demonstrating social communication. This assumption is supported by the fact that we can train social species from very different groups of animals (e.g. great apes, dolphins, dogs, parrots) to understand and in several cases even use abstract symbols for communication with humans and conspecifics. Even simple grammatical rules for sequences of 2-3 symbols can be trained to be understood by several species (e.g. great apes, dogs, dolphins). Even though human language training in these species takes considerable time and effort, it convinces us that cognitive foundations for language are present in other species, and, given the relevant selection pressures, symbolic communication could evolve in other species.