Photo: Andrew Pons/ Unsplash
Humans don't have the monopoly on thought or structured language, an animal behaviourist says.
Professor Emeritus at Northern Arizona University Con Slobodchikoff has shown that some animals do have their own vocabulary, the ability to describe what they see - and what they can't.
Slobodchikoff has had dogs all his life, and has even written a book called How to Talk to Your Dog.
"Most people think that they know what their dogs are trying to communicate to them and scientific experiments have shown that most of the time people are wrong," Slobodchikoff told Summer Report.
Another of his books, he wrote from the point of view of his dog Zephyr.
His next project is a type of animal translator which he hopes will revolutionise the way we see, interact and communicate with, the animals that share our world.
He said using AI, the app will use video and audio recordings to take the signals from dogs and translate them into English or any other language.
"And as we get more and more information, it'll get more and more sophisticated."
The team was having difficulty finding people to fund the work so it was being done on a shoestring budget, he said.
"But we're making good progress."
He hopes in two to three years it will be a well functioning app.
As people start to look indepth at translating animal signals, Slobodchikoff said we will find animals like pigs can communicate with each other and possibly with humans.
"I think language will have important implications for how we deal with the animal world and that's something that we'll have to think about," he said.
"My hope is that people will start to think of animals are their partners rather than as their possessions to do with what they will, and I'm hoping that people will have a much better view of animals and how animals fit into the natural world."
