Animal Communication: Can they speak and could they again?

We have read stories and watched films where animals could speak with human, where does this all come from?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
We walk amongst ghosts every day, be it sights of
war and strife, are poverty and horror. The twisting, snaking
paths are beautiful but candid us to some things undiscovered
and terrifying. From the Mississippi Delta to the jungles of
the far East. The dead demand to be acknowledged. This

(00:42):
is what we do here. Welcome to the House of Asher.
And hello, Welcome to the House of Asher. I am
your host, Steve Asher. And how the heck are you.
I hope you're doing well. And this last end of

(01:06):
the month of September, and we are definitely in Halloween season.
I'm definitely ready for it. Leaves are slowly starting to turn,
the nights are cooler, Pumpkin spice, everything is springing up everywhere,

(01:33):
and you know it's time. I'm starting to see the
neighbors put up, you know, like the giant skeletons and
all that, which is it's so funny, you know, stories
of giant skeletons were suppressed and pushed and now they're
literally out on the front lawns of people's houses. It's
it's a beautiful thing. I do want to thank you

(01:55):
guys for tuning in and as always, you can hear
me on Spotify. iHeart Spreaker all that, and also you're
probably hearing me on YouTube, so please like and subscribe
and share. I'd appreciate it. And you can also find
me on Steveasher dot studio dot com. And that's all
lowercase together. So anyway, was thinking about animals. Okay, not

(02:20):
in a cardinal sense, so get your mind out of
the gutter. I was thinking about do you remember you
were a little bitty and you would you have a
favorite dog or a cat or whatever. And it's they
really seem it really seemed like they understood you. Now,
I know a lot of times they read the tone

(02:40):
of a person, body gestures, facial expressions. But I started
really thinking about it. Was there a time when animals
could speak? Was there a time or at least where
humans could understand the language? Now, most of what I
know is from a Judeo you know, Christian type situation.

(03:02):
Of course, there was the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Now they also talked about Balaam's donkey. I think that
was from the Book of Numbers, where they literally spoke. Now, this,
I guess could convery a divine message to humans who

(03:24):
animal voices. Now, I don't know about you. If you
have a pet, I think you definitely know when they're sick,
when they're bad or not bad, feeling bad, when they're whatever.
Same thing with the baby. They all we want to
say a baby is nonverbal. Trust me, they're verbals all
get out. They cry for this, they cry for that,
they coop for this, they cool for that, And you

(03:47):
will learn it. By the time that they're getting up
me and toddlers and start using their big boy or
big girl voices. You're definitely going to You're definitely going
to know it. And I am quite aware of there
is human voice like control in like great apes. You know,

(04:09):
I'm not getting into the evolutionary blah blah blah, but
I know like chimpanzees and orangutans. There was a chimpanzee
he'd lived through the forties through the early two thousands,
and he could carry on some conversations and he could
clearly say the word mama, which tells me. If they

(04:32):
can say mama, I'm sure they can say other things.
You know, even a small child is capable of a
certain amount of communication. Crows, starlings, parakeets, budgies, all these
types of critters can communicate and re play words. Do

(05:01):
they know maybe the degree and the full intent of
the word. No, but they know if they say certain
words you get a treat. Dolphins we could communicate as well.
There's a lot of apes that use hand gestures, hand communications.
It just is, And I wonder it doesn't say it

(05:24):
in the Bible in regards of like the Garden of Eating,
the Garden of Eden and all that. But like if
the prophet was talking to the donkey that was after
the garden eating, So were we at one time able
to communicate with the animals? Because if Adam named the
animals and did all this, I would assume they would

(05:44):
have had a certain amount of comprehension. So when did
it change? So let's think about it. You remember the
Tower of Babel, Babel, Babbel, how have you pronounced it?
God decided to confuse the tongues. Now, I wonder either

(06:12):
at the Garden of Eden when he cast him out
and more or less cut off his his connection with
the divine and the way he had it. I wonder
if the animal's tongues got confused their own little tire
of Babbel moment. But can we foster that? Can we

(06:34):
reconnect with animals? Can we communicate? Now? I know people
who work with wolves, people who work with different type
of animals will learn certain tones. Certain animals will use
certain yips as happiness, some as fear, and some as

(06:57):
there's an intruder, are to hide. And these people that
have kind of learned this can't speak to them and
their tongue, so obviously they can communicate. I wonder if
and when that will happen again. Of course, I've not
brought up the film Planet of the Apes, although it's

(07:17):
one of my favorite films. How far are we from
doing that? And the way we're doing genetic splicing and
all this stuff, how soon will it be before we
have a functioning orangutan guerrilla. Sure it'll be in some
sort of service industry. I think it's coming. We can

(07:43):
talk about all the AI and electric this and whatever,
but I still think it's on the table. I think
anything that we can manipulate, unfortunately, we're going to try
to manipulate. I don't know. I wouldn't real it out y'all,

(08:05):
but I have heard of stories of people talking to animals.
I mean, how many books you know, Animal Farm and
all that stuff. You know, the Jungle Book. There's always
this anthropomorphic type creatures who not only take on behaviors
of humans, they communicate with them. Clearly, I think it's there.

(08:31):
I think it's a skill that we lost. That's just
my personal opinion. And I think in time it's gonna come.
If if it's fostered in this research ruight, hopefully they
will have the I guess the best word is the

(08:51):
wisdom to know just because they can do something, they
don't need to do something because it get definitely mean
they're something stormy skies ahead. But I do once you
guys have go out there, enjoyed the best of your day.

(09:14):
Go out there and talk to the birds. Go out
there and talk to the geese. Feed the geese. Geese
need something, throw them some crackers or something. But sometimes
this stuff is scary, but it's okay. There's fear in learning.
So whence the sun sets behind the pines and the

(09:38):
shadows grow long, make sure to check under your door,
check your closet, look outside, maybe even look at your
little dog full of your bed. Maybe lean in and say, so,
what do you think about it. You never know. It

(10:02):
might just answer you. But that's okay, because there's fear
and learning, there's fear new experiences. So I beg all
of you to please, please take care and stay scared.