Question: why do dogs bark and not talk

Asked by erin10288 to DJ, Kyler, Mia, Mick, Peter on 1 Sep 2013. This question was also asked by baileymymie8.

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  1. Photo: Mia CobbMia Cobb
    answered on 1 Sep 2013:

    @erin10288: Hello! You could flip this around and ask why do humans talk instead of neigh? It’s because of the way dogs evolved in their style of communication and also the vocal structures that exist for them to make noise. They are physically unable to speak the way we do because they are built differently. They also have a perfectly wonderful system of communication that relies heavily on body language and some sounds (growling and different types of barking) that they understand (even internationally – how cool is that?!).

    Have you listened to different types of dog barks before? Think you couldl tell a lonely bark from an excited bark? Want to try?
    Go here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/meaning-dog-barks.html and click ‘launch interactive’ to have a go!

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  2. Photo: Peter PerryPeter Perry
    answered on 1 Sep 2013:

    Only humans can really talk. There are animals (particularly lyrebirds, cockatoos and magpies) that can imitate a wide variety of sounds (including human voices) but that is not really talking.
    There are two parts of it:
    First, we have learnt to close a part of our throat so flaps of skin vibrate as we breathe out, and shape our mouth (mostly using the tongue) and use our nasal cavities to make sounds. Other animals do not have those flaps we call “vocal cords”.
    Second, we have developed a special part of our brain that can select and interpret those sounds as language. It seems that the basic rules of language are hard-wired into our brains, but we learn fine details (like where the verb goes in a sentence – those rules are different for different languages) and the actual vocabulary (the words we use) from our parents (mostly).

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  3. Photo: Michael CroninMichael Cronin
    answered on 1 Sep 2013:

    why do we talk and not bark?
    Dont you think life would be a little easier??

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Comments

  1. Photo: coolgirl22coolgirl22
    commented on 2 Sep 2013:

    I think we should be able to bark so we can talk to our dogs and see what they are saying and then if they want something they can talk to us and they should be able to talk

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  2. Photo: MiaMia
    commented on 5 Sep 2013:

    I also just remembered about this developing technology intended for working dogs – like Google glass for dogs! http://www.businessinsider.com.au/dogs-talking-to-humans-2013-8

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