Researchers from the BARKS Lab at Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) are studying whether dogs are capable of pronouncing human words. The project’s goal is not to turn pets into “talking” creatures, but to understand how human speech evolved and what mechanisms enabled this unique skill.
Dr. Tamás Faragó, the head of the research, notes that dogs are an ideal model for comparative experiments: “We cannot recreate the conditions in which human speech originated, but we can observe the communicative abilities displayed by other species.”
The scientists point out that speech requires not only a developed brain but also the precise coordination of respiratory, laryngeal, and articulatory movements. It turns out that dogs already possess some of these skills—they differentiate sounds, understand dozens of words, react to intonation, and even recognize familiar people by voice. Moreover, some experiments suggest that the animals can control their larynx and change the frequency of sound, indicating vocal flexibility.
Nevertheless, specialists believe that the main reason dogs haven’t learned to speak is not biological but social. Unlike humans, for whom language helped coordinate complex joint actions, dogs interact perfectly well without words—through gestures, scents, and facial expressions.
The researchers emphasize that even if dogs could one day mimic human speech, forcing them to talk would be unethical. Such intervention could trigger the “uncanny valley” effect—where something closely resembling a human, but not quite, causes uneasiness and repulsion in people. The results of the study were published in the journal Biologia Futura.
