History Main / TalkingAnimal

%% * ''LetsPlay/ChimneySwift11'': Pilot Pig. Chimney mostly interacts with him in his mod reviews.

* A guy has a parrot that can sing and speak beautifully. He takes it to the synagogue on Rosh Hashonah and makes a wager that the bird can conduct the High Holiday service better than the temple’s cantor. When the big moment comes, though, the parrot is silent. The guy is outraged. He takes the bird home and is about to kill it when the bird finally speaks: "Schmuck! Think of the odds we’ll get on Yom Kippur!"

* A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender if he could get a free beer if he can show him something unbelievable. The bartender agrees. The man puts a hamster and a frog on the bar and all of a sudden the frog starts singing a Broadway medley. A man at the end of the bar says, "That's amazing, I'll give you $1,000 for the frog!" The man agreed and the guy paid $1000 and left with the frog. The bartender said he could have gotten much more for the frog, but the man says, "Frogs are easy to come by - the hamster's a ventriloquist."

[[folder:Real Life]]
* [[CaptainObvious Humans]].
* No non-human animal is known to be capable of language, though some are capable of mimicking human speech, most notably parrots and corvids. Animal communication is very common, but animals lack the sort of sophisticated symbolic speech that humans are capable of, and show little to no comprehension of grammar.
** Because parrots are capable of mimicking human speech, some of them have been used to try and understand the extent to which animals can understand language. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29 Alex the parrot]] was capable of responding to very simple questions, such as identifying the number, color, or shape of objects on a tray, and could respond with numbers between zero and six, but was not capable of dynamically forming grammatical sentences himself. Perhaps the greatest feat of intelligence he displayed was anecdotal; when presented an apple after learning some fruit names, he supposedly called it a "baneery", which was interpreted by researchers as a portmanteau of cherry and banana, two fruits he was familiar with.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gef Gef the Talking Mongoose]]. Parapsychologists debated on whether it was an animal that could talk, a poltergeist, or a cryptid, but it was simply a case of ventriloquism. A reporter caught the daughter making animal sounds, which the father then tried to convince the reporter were coming from elsewhere.
* Hoover the seal showed an ability to mimic "Get outta here!" in a thick New England accent.
* Wikipedia has a page on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_animal IRL talking animals.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Asian Animation]]
* ''Animation/BoonieBears'': Besides Briar and Bramble, who are borderline {{Civilized Animal}}s capable of doing human things, pretty much the only human characteristic the animals of the woods express are talking. The circus animals are {{Partially Civilized|Animal}} however.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]

[[folder:Pinball]]

-->'''Amy:''' "Player one catch ball."

* ''{{Franchise/Extrapower}}'': King Leo, a 200 year old talking lion who owes his sentience to [[ThePhoenix the flame princess]]. He's unique in the world of Extrapower: even when ''[[VideoGame/ExtrapowerGiantFist Giant Fist]]'' presents animals that the human characters know by name, they are perfectly normal animals who do not speak human language.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''Podcast/TrialsAndTrebuchets'':
** Winsler's familiar, Mr. Wiggles, is a talking cat.
** During the [[HeroicPetStory "of Pets and Prophecies"]] arc, [[TeamPet the party's pets]] are all magically whisked away to save a world of talking animals.

** during the [[HeroicPetStory "of Pets and Prophecies"]] arc, [[TeamPet the party's pets]] are all magically whisked away to save a world of talking animals.

* In ''Podcast/TrialsAndTrebuchets'', Winsler's Familiar Mr. Wiggles is a talking cat.

** Because parrots are capable of mimicking human speech, some of them have been used to try and understand the extent to which animals can understand language. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29 Alex the parrot]] was capable of responding to very simple questions, such as identifying the number, color, or shape of objects on a tray, and could respond with numbers between zero and six, but was not capable of dynamically forming grammatical sentences himself. Perhaps the greatest feat of intelligence he displayed was anecdotal; when presented an apple after learning some fruit names, he supposedly called it a "baneery", which was interpreted by researchers as a portmanteau of cherry and banana, two fruits he was familiar with.* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gef Gef the Talking Mongoose]]. Parapsychologists debated on whether it was an animal that could talk, a poltergeist, or a cryptid, but it was simply a case of ventriloquism. A reporter caught the daughter making animal sounds, which the father then tried to convince the reporter were coming from elsewhere.

** Attempts have been made to teach primates sign language. Teaching them to make signs is very possible, and several have been taught to make hand signs (usually based on American Sign Language), but they're incapable of using them in a coherent fashion that would resemble language; while they can associate a sign to an object or person, they can't string them together into grammatically correct sentences. For example, Nim Chimpsky's longest "sentence" was "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you."
** Kanzi the bonobo that is able to use a series of symbols on a keyboard which translate to English words, as well as using limited sign language, and is capable of responding to simple commands. While the success rate in responding to commands seemed high on cursory inspection, later analysis revealed that [[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/ape-language-ace-gets-tripped-simple-grammar the success rate was extremely low in situations where grammar was important, indicating very poor ability to grasp grammar]].
** Because parrots are capable of mimicking human speech, some of them have been used to try and understand the extent to which animals can understand language. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29 Alex the parrot]] was capable of responding to very simple questions, such as identifying the number, color, or shape of objects on a tray, and could respond with numbers between zero and six, but was not capable of dynamically forming grammatical sentences himself. Perhaps the greatest feat of intelligence he displayed was anecdotal; when presented an apple after learning some fruit names, he supposedly called it a "baneery", which was interpreted by researchers as a portmanteau of cherry and banana, two fruits he was familiar with.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gef Gef the Talking Mongoose]]. Parapsychologists debated on whether it was an animal that could talk, a poltergeist, or a cryptid, but it was simply a case of ventriloquism. A reporter caught the daughter making animal sounds, which the father then tried to convince the reporter were coming from elsewhere.

** In all the ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' series, ''VideoGame/PokeParkWii'' series, and all the Rumble games (except the first), the Pokemon can talk. Whether it was truly this trope or simply TranslationConvention was ambiguous at first in ''Pokepark'', but the sequels to both games drop hints that the pokemon ''really were talking''. In ''Pokemon Conquest'', Arceus speaks with the player. And in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'' it confirms that Zorua and Zoroark can transform into humans and integrate into human society with the humans none the wiser. The same can likely be assumed with Mew and Ditto.

%% * In ''JesperWhoHerdedHares'', the ants talk.

* Sherman, of ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'', is a hamster that used to be a pet at a university and is an InsufferableGenius. This is lampshaded:

* [[WesternAnimation/PetSquad]] loved this trope. The 3 main characters can talk to each other and the ducks when not superised, however use [[AnimalTalk]] to their owner when he's in the room.

PollyWantsAMicrophone is a specific sub-trope for when in fiction, most animals can’t talk, but parrots can talk instead just of mimicking.

** At the end of ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuers'', when Penny is being interviewed by the TV reporter, she tells him that she talks to Bernard and Bianca. The reporter is surprised. It can be chalked up to that in the Disney world, kids can understand/communicate with animals, but adults can't. Also, the array of wild animals Cody could talk to in ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'': kangaroos, wombats, mice, lizards...

* ''Animation/BoonieBears'': Besides Briar and Bramble, who are borderline {{Civilized Animal}}s capable of doing human things, pretty much the only human characteristic the animals of the woods express are talking. The circus animals are PartiallyCivilized however.