Can we talk to the animals?

[HLGStrider]

Can we talk to the animals?+

For starters I know the Warg's have their own language. I also know that elves can talk to horses and the eagles can talk... but what animals can and which can't in the Lord of the Rings.

In the second or maybe third chapter of the Fellowship, when they are heading across country there is an interlude where this little fox sees them and says something like "Hobbits, out of doors? What's the world coming to?"

So apparently foxes talk... However, there is never any mention of farmer Maggot's dogs talking and in the Sil it seemed to be taken for granted that the fact that Beren's hound friend could talk three times in his life was unusual.

So... which animals can talk and which can't? Can all animals talk but just not talk to humans and hobbits (and others not in a sort of Doolittle groove )? Wouldn't you have qualms about eating a cow if it looked up at you and said "PLEASE!!! I'm so young. I'd never hurt a fly..." with all the other cows begging "No... no..." in the background.... and Baa-ram-ewe go the sheep...

There are a lot of interesting things to be explored here.

 

[Bombadillo]

elves can talk with every animal, only some of the animals aren't that nice....(elves want to talk with everything according to treebeard)
but hobbits and men can't, only in very special situations can men hear animals talk (bard in the hobbit)

 

[DGoeij]

IIRC, the fox only 'thought' about the Hobbits, and did not say it out loud.
Concering the poll, I think some species in ME are able to talk to other species and amongst eachother. Like some birds (especially the eagles, but they seem to be a little more than animals) and the wargs.

And the elves seem to be talking to everything. I think that they can make themselves understandable to any friendly animal.

 

[Lantarion]

I don't think ALL Elves could speak to animals; I think we greatly overestimate their skills. I believe that only very few people could learn to talk to animals, eg. Radagast. No animals except the Eagles could talk the commonly spoken languages of Middle-Earth, so the People had to learn their 'language'. God knows how..

 

[Leto]

yes, we can all talk to the animals. That doesn't mean they'll talk back...

 

[YayGollum]

Yay for Beornings! As far as I know, they could talk to all animals. I'd assume that all of these animals had a language that they could talk to the Beornings in.

 

[HLGStrider]

Maybe I should rephrase my question... are these animals sentient or capable of higher thought? I mean we know that animals have instincts and can think, but can they think like humans?

 

[DGoeij]

Some humans do not even think as humans.

I really wouldn't know what to think of the animals in ME. The bird that helped Bard to kill Smaug could definately do something useful with information it recieved. That's at least a token of intelligence behond instinct.

 

[HLGStrider]

Definately... and the fox seemed to at least have opinions... However, the dogs and a few of the horses seemed to act on instinct (namely the dark rider's horses...). Also there isn't any issue about eating sheep... etc.

So we are left with an unanswerable question... I love those.

 

[DGoeij]

Well according to mr. T. Pratchett, the common animal divides the world into things to: a)mate with, b)eat, c)run away from, and d)rocks. Because of this the animal mind has a cunning edge were it matters.
According to this philosophy, Tolkien's fox was on a evolutionary dead-end. And you have to agree with me that Thorin stated that there weren't many of the birds left that could understand dwarves. Theory proven.

 

[gate7ole]

Another example:
Huan was not permitted to talk more than 3 times in an elvish language. And Huan was the greatest of dogs.
Maybe, animals can talk but are not permitted

 

[YayGollum]

Well, Huan definitely wans't your average dog, but oh well. I would say that animals are just like humans. Different intelligence levels, but in Middle Earth, I'd say that they all had languages and some kind of intelligence. Maybe different animals had different languages. I don't know. Argh!

 

[HLGStrider]

I'd say that they all had languages and some kind of intelligence.

and yet there weren't any homocide reports when the Hobbits had bacon and eggs...

Perhaps only pigs can't talk.

I don't get the thing about the dead end fox, Dj... Rephrase please.

 

[DGoeij]

Originally posted by HLGStrider
I don't get the thing about the dead end fox, Dj... Rephrase please.

LOL, the fox was having opinions, having opinions is taking away vital brain-power from your survival abilities. (because of the cunning edge where it matters, when you don't waste your energy on opinions) So the fox was doing things that would be bad for his survival. Therefore, a evolutionary dead-end, or simply a stupid thing to do.
Instead of going around being suprised about out-door Hobbits, and wondering about it, the fox should have thought c) or maybe d) and nothing else.
Or, in more basic terms, it was a lame joke.

 

[Lantarion]

Last posted by HLGStrider
Perhaps only pigs can't talk.

Have you read George Orwell's 'Animal Farm'?

 

[HLGStrider]

Ah... lame joke... and no I haven't read Animal Farm... I've read Babe, however... Will that do???

I'm kidding by the way.

 

[Ithrynluin]

I would say that all animals can speak,it's just a matter of whether one understands their speech or not.

 

[Ceorl]

I believe that all animals have a basic intelligence of a sort similar to a 'expert systems' type AI. A reasoning path like a flowchart, which determines a final outcome. The Elves and other skilled beings(Yavanna, Radagast) would be able to make themselves understood upon the mind of an animal. Eagles are an exception as they were spirits sent by Manwe and therefore have more than animal intelligence.

Those who can make impress their thoughts upon animals are not IMHO able to convey complex concepts but unly to confer feelings or limited commands. i.e They might be able to tell a horse to take them to a place well known to the horse, but not across to a place the horse had never visited. Or they could infer an emotion such as anger, fear or happiness, which would, by the flowchart I mentioned, make the animal respond in certain ways. i.e Legolas would have conveyed calm feelings to Arod in LoTR, causing the horse to stop bucking and allow him to ride more easily.

hmm hope I havent confused quite everyone, but that is what I think.

 

[HLGStrider]

I understand the gist of it, but I have no idea what an

'expert systems' type AI

is... Good thought... but it doesn't explain why the fox is thinking up opinions.