Confronting Friends and Family

[Rayaan]

Animals don't use language, at least so far as we know up to this point. Many different studies have been done on the capacity of animals to have language, and none have satisfactorily met the requirements. There are several that have a few of the criteria (bee communication is actually pretty neat in that it has a few of the less-found aspects of language such as displacement), but no animal communication system meets all of the baseline requirements for it to be considered language.

If you mean to say that no other animal communication is complex enough as human language, then I agree with you (though not without a doubt).

But you know that animals do communicate with each other - mostly in non-verbal ways, perhaps - like the variety of bird calls, through smell, sounds, dancing, gestures, body language, changing their colors, and so on. By doing such things, they are technically sending and receiving information between each other in ways that are not fully known to us.

The point is, just because the animals are not uttering words and sentences, doesn't mean that they are not using language.

Other animals just use a different language than ours, but they do use language.

lan·guage (noun}:
a. Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.
b. Such a system including its rules for combining its components, such as words.
c. Such a system as used by a nation, people, or other distinct community; often contrasted with dialect.

Animal communication falls under the first definition of language (see above) because they communicate their thoughts and feelings through signals, voice sounds, and gestures, among other things. Even though they are not using words, those activities are still considered to be language. If you disagree with that definition, then I'd like to ask you, what is your understanding of the word "language"? And how are animals not using language?