FT278


The dream of speaking to animals runs from Sigurd in Norse mythology right up to Dr Dolittle. Some researchers have claimed that they can actually do it, by teaching their subjects sign language or another mutually comprehensible means of communication. These included famous chimps like Nim and Washoe and the gorilla Koko. A few years ago, we were on the brink of a breakthrough in inter-species communications – so what happened?

Wittgenstein famously comm­ented that if a lion could talk, we would not be able to understand it.[1] He believed that different ‘forms of life’ would have such different viewpoints that there could not be any common ground.