Our language might be humanity's greatest feat.

We can communicate abstract thoughts and ideas beyond the here and now, tell stories, make complex plans, and discuss hypotheticals.

We can write. We can make podcasts.

Other animals might turn out to have some or all of these abilities.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as they say.

And after all, it seems like every year now a new barrier is broken down in the field of animal linguistics.

Other species have words with specific learned meanings. Dolphins give themselves names.

Chimps, bonobos, and gorillas can learn our sign language

and talk to us. Bees have developed their own sign language based on dancing. African gray parrots have

used English to solve simple math problems, engage in small talk, and make requests. Some monkeys have even shown the

ability to lie, telling their enemies that a snake is nearby so as to distract them. These discoveries

would have been thought impossible a hundred years ago, words, names, mathematics, lying, breaking

the species barrier, and talking to us, these results were not anticipated.

And so for me to claim that these remaining assumed differences,

the differences between human language and the languages of other animals,

for me to claim that they are permanent would be extremely ignorant.

Evolution does not happen in giant leaps, and so the assumption that language

is somehow an exception is, and always was, ridiculous. But let us assume, at the very least,

that human language systems are more complex and advanced than any other animal on earth. That's not such a

wild assumption. Let's just call ourselves the heavyweight champion of language. We can step into

the ring with any other animal and talk them into the ground. In combat sports, however, that is not always considered a fair fight.

Opponents have to be paired by weight. So who is the pound for pound champion of language?

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