> I don't think they'd learn to speak whale any more than kids learn to speak other sounds in their natural environment. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work eithe

> I don't think they'd learn to speak whale any more than kids learn to speak other sounds in their natural environment. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work either, but kids do learn the sounds of other animals and they love to reproduce them. Many kids can make dog or duck sounds before they can even speak like humans. The problem is that of course, dogs, cats, ducks don't actually have a language, just a few different sounds, so that doesn't prove anything about kids' ability to understand a hypothetical actual animal language.