Bilateral communication with animals might not be science fiction soon!

Many of us have a bond with non-human animals that allows us to communicate. Often, they can understand our words and desires, and they try to share their own with us also. But very few creatures have the range of vocalizations that humans do, making bilateral communication very challenging.

A speech pathologist, Christina Hunger, is working to teach her dog to speak using buttons, a little bit like some experiments with primates. Over time, the dog, Stella, is becoming more proficient, and is now stringing a few words together into primitive sentences, akin to a human toddler.

Intriguingly, by teaching our language to non-human animals, we may make them more intelligent and capable. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis posits that it's very difficult to have effective cognition without words to conceptualize in.

Through using words in daily life, non-human animals may come to think in more human like terms, perhaps even able to appreciate our culture, such as TV for young children.

After all, is it not our culture which makes us truly 'human', giving us the power to create things that outlive us, and learn from the experience of others, instead of merely acting on instinct.