Or any other language?
I.E. My question is whether there is any evidence of fish understanding human languages? This question is inspired by anecdotal reports that Charles “headless” I spoke to fishes
While whales, dolphins, squids, and other marine animals communicate with each other (or at least we think it is communication), and while eating fish may help kids understand human languages better, I can’t find any evidence of fish even remotely understanding human language. Since they don’t use sound to communicate with each other, it is extremely unlikely that they’d be even theoretically capable of comprehending a human language. They just don’t have the right brain structures.
Can you provide a site/cite which offers this anecdotal report? Otherwise, there is nothing in your post to keep this in General Questions.
No, but it’s in a book I have downstairs somewhere. I can provide plenty of cites that Charles III (to be) talks to plants though.
The point is not whether Charles I spoke to fishes, but whether the fishes showed they understood him.
King Canute ‘spoke’ to the tide.
I believe the babel fish can understand English.
Of course fish don’t understand the English. No one and no thing understand the English! Who would eat something called mash? What the hell is blood pudding? How does stiffening the upper lip help anything? Human beings would ask these questions. Fish not only don’t understand the English, they don’t care. They stopped asking questions after Charles II. Maybe it had to do with the Black Death or the Great Fire of London. I don’t know…I don’t know.
I think this exchange from the Bard is on point:
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
The short answer is no.
The long answer is also no.
I see we think alike, Lemur866. I was goint to post that exact quote, before you beat me to it.
On the question, I doubt there’s any animal other than some birds and animals which can even do so much as perform tricks on spoken commands, and it’s debateable whether that constitutes understanding language. Some of the cephalopods (octopodes and their kin) might be smart enough (I think they’ve been taught tricks), but they’re more visually-oriented, and I doubt they can even hear.
Not English, but my goldfish know a smattering of Mandarin. It is obvious though that they speak Feline because they relentlessly taunt our cat.
This is why I am the president of the Colibri Fan Club.
Goldfish could speak English, but supposedly not very well
“Keep a stiff upper chin.”
“In two words, im possible.”
“Gentlemen, include me out.”
“Let’s have some new clichés.”
“Tell them to stand closer apart.”
“Gentlemen, listen to me slowly.”
"That’s our strongest weak point.
“I read part of it all the way through.”
“You fail to overlook the crucial point.”
Kingfish understand English passably well. One once ran Louisiana, as a matter of fact: Huey Long - Wikipedia
Say what?
I apologize for singling you out, but no one seems to have responded to that assertion.
Sailboat
Don’t let the “schools” bit throw you.
Fish understand English if you say if LOUDLY and slooooooooowly enough.
If fish understood any language, there’d be evidence when they got hooked and yanked out of the water. They wouldn’t just flop around silently. I know I wouldn’t be able to keep quiet if that happend to me.
Ask a fisherman if he’s ever heard little gasping, gurgling cuss words, in any language.