One thing I've learned by following a link from elsewhere in this thread is that while the total count of neurons in an animal's nervous system is not a good proxy for intelligence, the count of neurons in the forebrain is. By that measure, only the orca ranks higher than humans [1].

That doesn't mean language ability is a natural outcome of crossing a certain threshold of brain complexity; if anything it's more likely the other way around: this complexity being be driven by highly social behavior and communication.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02855-9

Birds have areas of the brain that we would consider language alike. Both for native bird communication and I would also speculate that for human to bird communication.

If you have ever owned a parrot this is blatantly obvious since they actively communicate and vocalize both observations and needs/desires

This reminds me of being told dogs don't feel emotions by someone who never owned one. Parrots most definitely can talk. Their language is extremely primitive but if you've ever been around a grey and it's owner for some time, they definitely talk to each other. The parrot will readily communicate observations and desires.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)

Common misconception. Parrots are much more than just mimicry machines. There is also Apollo the parrot that shows this in detail and following from Irene's research with Alex

Isn't that what humans do too? We mimic noises we've heard before and we associate meaning to the noises. Parrots can do that. Our quaker parrot would bite you, then say 'not supposed to bite'. He clearly associated some kind of meaning to that phrase.

Many animals can communicate.

Parrots can't speak fluent English, which shouldn't be surprising. Last I checked, no human is fluent in Parrot or Dolphin.

Though, at least one parrot may have demonstrated an ability to understand language at more than a surface level.

Bumblebee (the Transformer) might have an objection here. Purposeful mimicry can be used for talking on certain complexity. It does not have to be human-level to be communication.

This is also what toddlers do until bit by bit they're repeating everything you say back to you in context.

So do we, otherwise we would all speak our own individual language.

So what you’re saying is that parrots are stochastic parrots.

Like Starlings do.

I mean, isn’t that just what you’re doing too? If you see a cow, and you’ve been taught that ‘cow’ is the sound that describes a cow, don’t you say “cow?”

Dogs do that too.

My dogs eat poop, and therefore are also like LLMs.

Your hypothesis has therefore been peer-reviewed.