Language in animals (not taught by humans)
I know this probably sounds silly, but does anyone have any links to studies/articles on language in animals? Not in the sense of animals such as chimps, gorillas, dolphins, and gray parrots that are taught to communicate with humans; I mean studies/articles on either (1) vocal communication between animals; or (2) animals learning (without outside influence from humans) to communicate with humans.
I'm specifically interested in cats, for a couple of interrelated reasons: (1) our cats have become incredibly vocal lately, and will walk up to us and make long, complicated utterances with a great variety of sounds, some of which we'd never heard before; and (2) the other night one of the cats came into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, made a noise that (to me) sounded excited when she spotted a glass of water on the bedside table, walked over to it, made a curious noise (again, by my interpretation), but when she discovered the glass was empty, she made a noise that had the exact same tone as a person uttering an obscenity. So I started wondering whether she could have picked up that sound from us. And of course, from there, I started wondering if the long, complicated utterances they've been making lately are an attempt at imitating human language, especially since they only do that when they're looking at us. (For the record, one of our cats is roughly of average intelligence, but the other one is incredibly smart and has come up with ways to communicate with us in the past: banging the door to the cabinet with the food in it when she's hungry, pushing the water bowl around when the water is empty or not fresh enough, etc.; but lately she's taken to coming up to us and meowing instead; sometimes she'll even then lead us to what she wants, much like Lassie.)
I'm also interested in other people's thoughts on the subject.
I'm specifically interested in cats, for a couple of interrelated reasons: (1) our cats have become incredibly vocal lately, and will walk up to us and make long, complicated utterances with a great variety of sounds, some of which we'd never heard before; and (2) the other night one of the cats came into the bedroom, jumped on the bed, made a noise that (to me) sounded excited when she spotted a glass of water on the bedside table, walked over to it, made a curious noise (again, by my interpretation), but when she discovered the glass was empty, she made a noise that had the exact same tone as a person uttering an obscenity. So I started wondering whether she could have picked up that sound from us. And of course, from there, I started wondering if the long, complicated utterances they've been making lately are an attempt at imitating human language, especially since they only do that when they're looking at us. (For the record, one of our cats is roughly of average intelligence, but the other one is incredibly smart and has come up with ways to communicate with us in the past: banging the door to the cabinet with the food in it when she's hungry, pushing the water bowl around when the water is empty or not fresh enough, etc.; but lately she's taken to coming up to us and meowing instead; sometimes she'll even then lead us to what she wants, much like Lassie.)
I'm also interested in other people's thoughts on the subject.