These sorts of discussions are bedeviled by the problem that, in English and other languages, ‘language’ has a sufficiently broad usage that one could make a ca

These sorts of discussions are bedeviled by the problem that, in English and other languages, ‘language’ has a sufficiently broad usage that one could make a case for calling cetacean vocalizations a language in some sense. I am pretty sure, however, that if they had a human-like capability for language, it would be as obvious as if chimpanzees used power tools in the wild.