and so on—play a role. These are often specific to cultures, and therefore learning about cultural habits and rituals is necessary for an understanding of what words mean. In a famous and often misunderstood statement, Wittgenstein writes that if a lion could speak, we would not understand him (PI, II xi, 224). This is often interpreted as a statement about the otherness of non-human animals (Leahy 1994; DeGrazia 1994), but that interpretation is incorrect (see also Hearne [1986] 2007). Wittgenstein rarely discusses actual animals in his work, but he does often use them as metaphors. In this particular quotation, he uses the image of a lion as a metaphor for someone who is from a completely different cultural background. This becomes clear if we read what precedes it:
We also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country’s language. We do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them.
“I cannot know what is going on in him” is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not readily accessible.
If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. (PI, II xi, 224)
Wittgenstein here connects the otherness of others with not knowing their practices, not being able to “find our feet with them.” If all we have is a dictionary, we will not understand humans in a strange country; for understanding, we need knowledge of practices. It is telling that he chooses a lion as the illustration for these remarks. There were few lions in England when he wrote these words, and in the rest of his work he more usually refers to dogs or cats.
Wittgenstein’s views about non-human animals do not reflect close attention to them. They often function as an illustration of a claim about humans, as in the case of the lion above. Another example can be found in this statement about squirrels: “The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well. And no more do we need a law of induction to justify our actions or our predictions” (1969, §287). Here Wittgenstein does not attempt to understand squirrels or say anything definite about their capacities; he only uses them as an example to say something about humans. Similarly, when he writes that “a dog cannot be a hypocrite, but neither can he be sincere” (PI, Iixi, 229), he does not draw on his experience with actual dogs or aim to shed light on the sincerity of dogs (who can and do deceive humans—see Heberlein et al. 2017 and Gaita 2002 for a discussion4), but simply illustrates a series of thoughts about pretending and imponderable evidence in the case of humans (see LaCroix 2014, 66–67, for a similar argument). This ties in with his method in Philosophical Investigations, in which he often begins with (seemingly) common sense remarks and then responds to them in order to question our ways of thinking, continuously returning to the ways in which we use language. Examples about non-human animals are usually used in building arguments in this manner as an introduction to a question about human language use (LaCroix 2014),5 or as a way of bringing out specifically human attributes.
Many commentators (see, for example, DeGrazia 1994, 129–30; Diamond 1978; Gaita 2002; Lynch 1996) draw on these and other examples to argue that Wittgenstein did not see non-human animals as language-users, something that is often used as a stepping stone in determining the moral implications of his work for thinking about non-human animals (Diamond 1978; Leahy 1994; Pleasants 2006).6 The relevance of his work for thinking about non-human animal languages is underexplored. This is unfortunate, because while Wittgenstein’s remarks about non-human animals merely repeat stereotypical views about them, and while he did not seriously consider non-human animals as language-users,7 his views about human language are valuable for thinking about non-human animal languages and interspecies interactions for several reasons.
In conceptualizing and studying non-human animal languages, we need to pay attention to the practices in which they gain meaning that are similar to the way in which this works in the case of humans; Wittgenstein’s plea to study language games by studying the practices in which they are used is relevant in the case of non-human animal language as well. Secondly, we need to look beyond words and understand language as embodied (chapter 3). Human words play a role in some, but not all, language games, and Wittgenstein emphasizes the importance of gestures and other non-linguistic expressions in creating meaning (PI§7). Here we can think of “greeting,” for example. This can involve saying “hello,” waving, nodding, calling someone’s name, and so on. In his discussion of the aesthetic judgments that he considers to be complex and refined, he points to the importance of gestures (1978). A slight move of the head or a nod might be a better expression of a judgment than a word such as “beautiful.” Gestures, movements, and other non-verbal expressions play an important role in the languages of other animals. Thinking of language as more than words or sounds is crucial to thinking about animals and language, because humans and other animals have so many different relationships and encounters and because non-human animals express themselves in so many different ways. It is also important to note here that human languages need not consist of words: a good example of a language without words is Silbo Gomero, the whistled language of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, which is based on Spanish and used to communicate over long distances across ravines and through valleys. Other examples include the drum languages of Nigeria and Ghana, which are also used to communicate messages over long distances, and in which drum patterns follow spoken language, including the use of grammar.
Wittgenstein’s ideas about how language games are related—by means of a family resemblance—can shed light on similarities and relations in human-animal languages without presenting an a priori fixed truth about meaning. His emphasis on the strong relationship between meaning and use, and on the situated character of language—remember: we need to study language games by studying the practices in which they take place—are also relevant in thinking about non-human animals and language. Meaning is strongly interconnected with use for many non-human animals, as we will see in the following sections, and for humans the context in which other animals use language is very important in learning their meaning. Finally, instead of locating meaning in the relation between mind and world, Wittgenstein views language as essentially a public practice. He argues that meaning originates from the relation between language and world. Meaning is not a prefabricated entity that we can give or withhold from others, nor is it a property of words or minds; it is essentially social and tied to interactions between living beings. While, as we have seen, Wittgenstein focuses on human language—even though he writes that simple language games are also found in other animal species—this also applies to non-human animals and our interactions with them.
Thinking about language as language games in which human, non-human, and interspecies interactions can play a role allows us to get a better grasp on non-human and non-human/human linguistic practices without determining what language is for other animals. This can help us to study non-human animal language use. Non-human animals are co-creators of meaning in many different practices, and bringing this to light can help us to broaden our view of what language can entail. Similarities to humans can help humans to better understand other animals; differences require us to reformulate our own fixed ideas about language and meaning. In order to further explore this, I now turn to a discussion of different language games in relation to new ethological research, beginning with mimicry.
Parrots and Mimicry
Experiments in which non-human animals are taught to speak in human language can be seen as a specific set of language games. In the examples discussed above, human language is viewed as the only true language, which obscures forms of language use in non-human animals, but we can also find language games that involve using human language as a tool for interspecies communication in animal language research. A good example is to be found in psychologist Irene Pepperberg’s (1995) parrot language research. Parrots use human words. It was long thought that their use of language was restricted to simply repeating