Agree. Very informative. Thx @RivkahChaya
No problem.
And Hah!
I just realized why I picked “grapes” for my treat at the end of my above post.
There’s a scene in a Big Bang Theory episode, where Leonard perfectly summarizes ape-language experiments. He is comparing himself to Dr. Dave-something on, IIRC, a Christmas episode (Penny dates Dr. Dave, and he turns out to be married). Leonard says he is not as smart as Dr. Dave, in fact “Compared to him, I’m one of those sign language gorillas who knows how to ask for grapes.”
I miss that show.
Great posts, but I need to quibble on this:
The whole genus Homo is human. We use “human” as an informal label for our species because we’re the only extant member of the genus. But it’s important to remember that we were not always the only human species.
I didn’t use “human” as shorthand for “us,” which is to say, H. sapiens. I very specifically said that an interaction between H. erectus & non-human apes (Australopithecines, or Gigantopithecus, whatever), which would have been like, 1-2 million years ago. Well before H. sapiens. Or dogs.
Thanks for the clarification. I parsed your sentence as including H. erectus with the non-human apes.
The real question I’d like to ask is where is the ape study of this process of apes trying to use human-composed communication modalities. I’m open to the possibility that they’ve studied it and communicated among themselves about it, even though they’re not in control of the process. If they do, or did, they’re not making it accessible to us, regardless of whether they are able to. If they don’t think that way, wondering what it means that this is happening between species, it seems to me to imply that the kind of thought processes that NEED language to express aren’t thought processes that the apes tend to engage in.
I’ve been pretty conscious of building large towering concepts, where you’ve got understandings that are based on long thoughtful analysis of something, but now that you’ve got that you’re hanging on to that understanding as a noun, and you can discuss how it, in its complex process existence, affects or is affected by other equally complex conceptual nouns.
I don’t think “we’re more intelligent” is really the right formulation. But we construct these intricate complexities in our head that we’d have no hope of if we didn’t have language, a set of terms that refer to something.
I’m satisfied that other life forms can use what we’ve shown them as ways for them to tell us stuff, and that makes them intelligent, but we seem to be pretty isolated in our fascination with understanding complexities.
Personally I don’t take someones or some animals intelligence or lack of speech to determine my need(want) to understand them.
I wish people gave me that much quarter.
There are, however, elephant organizations that work in parallel with human organizations for re-wilding orphaned elephants. Of course we know almost nothing about how they’re organized, beyond that they show up in certain times and places to take custody of the young elephants after we humans are done with them.
We also made: outside, potty, snuggles, play. After training a few days she definitely preferentially uses the snack and hungry buttons as food related. We don’t have enough words to produce any grammar structure or creative combinations though
My last dog knew a hundred or more words, easily.
Couldn’t speak ‘em, though.
He might have if he’d had access to the speech buttons that @Beckdawrek has taught her dog Bayliss to use. There seems to be some controversy about whether dogs truly “understand” the meanings of the words elicited by the buttons, but Beck’s stories are pretty convincing.
This is fascinating. One wonders if the elephants have analogs to paperwork, record-keeping, donations, etc. From an elephantine point of view, maybe humans overcomplicate things.
Bayliss has done just exactly what I expected. He’s very smart. Not bragging, he came that way.
But I knew he’d be amendable to learning buttons if only because he thought I’d want him too. He’s a people pleaser. Or at least a few people pleaser. I think Son-of-a-wrek could direct him to jump into a volcano and he’d do it. Just the kind of dog he is.
I’ve worked with the Chihuahuas. They think any training is punishment. So I have to be easy.
Potty is an issue with them. My daughter brought them here not well trained. I fixed that forthwith.
They won’t go near that button and they do know it.
It’s taken at least 6mos to get them to push treat or toy reliably. They kinda dumb. Or figure they’ll ride the coattails of the other pets and know they’ll get the treat as well. That would make them genius or bums.
Could be they just don’t give a crap.
Still they are valued and loved.
Thank you @wolfpup for talking me up a bit. But really Bayliss just does it well. I cannot truthfully take responsibility. I suppose I did order and pay for the kit. 
ETA..got home from the hospital yesterday evening, Bayliss immediately pushed “bye” “all done’“
Brilliant animal.
Heck, I tend to think that way.
But, but…I give the goodest ever liver treats!!
I can relate to this because I don’t know any signed languages. I listened to a podcast (Lingthusiasm) where one of the presenters (or possibly a guest) spoke of how, before she knew ASL, she saw an ASL speaker making a gesture of opening a can and she assumed it was the sign for opening a can. And then she explained that no, it’s just a gesture, and the actual way to sign “opening a can” was nothing like that. And she understood that speakers of signed languages can use gestures just like speakers of oral languages, but that those gestures are not part of the language - that signed language is not gesture.
With all of these buttons out there, it will be interesting to see how far dogs can learn.
It’s been so long since my kids were small, but even human kids take quite a while to be able to string several words together.
It’s not very mysterious. Dog have understood, hand signs, whistles, gestures and even clicks/clucks if they’re exposed, for years and years.
I think as long as they have been domesticated and in our caves/homes if they were gonna find the lap top and write a book or give a keynote address are not likely to happen. They been hearing us speak words forever.
Communication with your dog on the buttons?
Well, It’s a fun game to play with your dog. That’s all.