Interesting ... I wonder what other animals and what capacity they have to learn to mimick language. Anecdotally, we have a small poodle. She's an unusually v

Interesting ... I wonder what other animals and what capacity they have to learn to mimick language. Anecdotally, we have a small poodle. She's an unusually vocal dog -- not a guard dog; she rarely barks at people, but we noticed early on that her barking sounds like the word "what", so we've always riled her up by saying "what" to her and watching her repeat. We've noticed if we vary the sounds (two barks, three barks), she'll often concentrate and then reliably repeat the pattern, but it rarely sounds anything similar to the original sound. Fast forward to two weeks ago when I was recovering from strep throat. I lost my voice but the dog had a lot of energy and wanted to horse around, so I looked at her and said "what", but my "what" was very deep, rumbling and monotone. The dog looked at me for a second, let out a low rumbling growl and said "wha" in the lowest sound she could muster. I laughed, did it again, and she repeated it, successfully, several times in a row (missing one or two).