I think animals are divided not by “country” but by significant change in geographical features of a place where they live. Probably a dense forest monkey understands the calls from another monkey from a dense forest but not from a deserted place. It’s only my assumption, as they [have to] learn to make different sounds based on where they live.. probably.
Studies have shown a universal language between dogs and humans. Dog barks sound the same worldwide. Even humans with no dog experiance understand various barks, suggesting a genetic language basis. I think any wolf would have a similar basic understanding of any other wolf.
"All the people were pretty good at figuring out what was going on. There were no significant differences between dog owners and non-dog owners. They were particularly good at identifying dog emotion in Stranger Danger, Guard Dog, Alone, and Play."
These are interesting studies, but many nevertheless wonder why scientists bother. Most of us understand a common language for terrestrial animals. Lower-pitched sounds come from bigger animals with bigger throats. I've never been growled at by a lion, but I would understand that a deep low growl means it is trying to scare me with its size. This holds true for bears, dogs, cats, deer, even humans. Conversely, high-pitched screams are generally calls for help, mimicking the pitch of the young. Showing your teeth is a near-universal sign of aggression. Put this all together and it is enough to satisfy most definitions of language.
This is obviously true, but borders frequently form along key geographical barriers. In any case the appropriate reference point would be linguistic regions of around 200+ years ago. Radio and television are the biggest problem with a modern comparison, but you'd want to eliminate cars and trains as well.
That's what I thought to myself about the headline, before clicking the article. As soon as I clicked, I found that the question asked was in fact intellectually interesting, and was not well summarized by the headline. There are even more interesting answers there.
Definitely recommend taking the time to read or at least skim the article, and not react to headlines, because headlines are so often over-simplified and even click-baity.
Species of animals do appear to have natural regional differences. And maybe regional differences in humans or human languages affect animals too, who knows? There's a slim chance that animals from different countries might not understand each other because countries are a human concept.
For birds, TL;DR answer is that they can have regional dialects' [0].
The question isn't really whether they 'understand' each other, but whether the differences cause changes in behaviour. Some birds preferentially mate with others that sound most like themselves. Others, because nature is complicated, do the opposite.
That whale was just an unfortunate whale that tried to communicate with others on a different wavelength (literally) due to something physically wrong with its pitch.
Sort of on topic: supposedly parrots that learn to talk can teach wild parrots to talk, but the wild parrot can't continue the trend.
On topic, I have a parrot that can call the dogs name, the dog comes running and the bird throws food at him...then laughs. Sometimes in a British accent. I am not sure where he picked that up.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 59.8 ms ] threadhttps://drsophiayin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Yin2004Ba...
Some less-dense coverage:
https://www.star2.com/living/2018/02/27/ev-when-your-dog-bar...
"All the people were pretty good at figuring out what was going on. There were no significant differences between dog owners and non-dog owners. They were particularly good at identifying dog emotion in Stranger Danger, Guard Dog, Alone, and Play."
These are interesting studies, but many nevertheless wonder why scientists bother. Most of us understand a common language for terrestrial animals. Lower-pitched sounds come from bigger animals with bigger throats. I've never been growled at by a lion, but I would understand that a deep low growl means it is trying to scare me with its size. This holds true for bears, dogs, cats, deer, even humans. Conversely, high-pitched screams are generally calls for help, mimicking the pitch of the young. Showing your teeth is a near-universal sign of aggression. Put this all together and it is enough to satisfy most definitions of language.
Smiling humans are a significant exception to this rule.
Definitely recommend taking the time to read or at least skim the article, and not react to headlines, because headlines are so often over-simplified and even click-baity.
Species of animals do appear to have natural regional differences. And maybe regional differences in humans or human languages affect animals too, who knows? There's a slim chance that animals from different countries might not understand each other because countries are a human concept.
The question isn't really whether they 'understand' each other, but whether the differences cause changes in behaviour. Some birds preferentially mate with others that sound most like themselves. Others, because nature is complicated, do the opposite.
[0] https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Voc...
(http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Dolphins)
https://youtu.be/L7rX4WOKZ7g?t=1h9m13s
On topic, I have a parrot that can call the dogs name, the dog comes running and the bird throws food at him...then laughs. Sometimes in a British accent. I am not sure where he picked that up.