Dogs don’t speak English, but they do know when you switch from one language to another, according to a study. Since family dogs are exposed to a continuous flow of human speech throughout their lives, researchers in Hungary conducted what they call the first research showing that non-human brains can distinguish between languages. They took MRI brain scans of 18 dogs while playing audio excerpts from “The Little Prince” in 2 different languages. The team also played scrambled versions of the book passages to test if dogs could tell the difference between actual speech and gibberish. The scientists found that the dogs indeed recognized these changes. However, it doesn’t appear that dog brains have a preference when it comes to hearing speech or non-speech sounds. One of the study’s co-authors said: “Dog brains, like human brains, can distinguish between speech and non-speech. But…whereas human brains are specially tuned to speech, dog brains may simply detect the naturalness of the sound.”
(This isn’t news to me. I’m pretty sure my pups knows “walk” “car” and “bacon” in 4 or 5 languages!)
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