Can Dogs ‘Speak’ with Accents?

It’s a question that’s haunted me ever since I saw a Siberian Husky named Aaron gabbing with his human in what sure sounded like an Italian accent: would a Boston terrier raised in Milan sound any different?

The Husky video has gone viral on pretty much every social platform, and even a couple news and entertainment sites, for obvious reasons. For one thing, it’s very cute — er, sorry, molto carino. It also immediately invites the question, “Is this real?” (Sadly, based on nothing but my own skepticism, I am not convinced it is; that dog is way better at making “B” sounds than I know most dogs to, well, be.) But perhaps most importantly, the clip also raises an even bigger point of curiosity: can dogs learn to “speak” with an accent?

Sadly, the world’s leading research institutions have not yet decided to commit time and funds to this extremely important topic. (Get on it, guys.) But according to two experts who spoke with Kinship, it is possible, if not actually proven, that dogs might vocalize differently based on the sounds the human speech they encounter everyday — albeit with some limitations.

According to Dr. Zachary Silver, professor of psychology and director of the Canine Intelligence Lab at Occidental College, a lot of dogs’ behavior comes down to their environment, as well as the way they tend to interact with humans. Although our pups definitely have no clue what an accent is, he says, it’s possible that they might imitate their humans’ tone and cadence as a way to bond through affiliation. The problem is that we don’t actually know if our dogs imitate our speech in the same  way they can mimic other human behaviors. “That,” Silver says, is “the missing link in the logical puzzle.” 

That said, if forced to take a guess, Silver would lean toward the possibility that dogs could copy their humans’ accents. Che meraviglia!

“So much of dogs’ behavior is rooted in responding to their owners’ communication and, in some cases, imitating it,” Silver says. “So I would actually be really surprised if we didn't see anything resembling vocal imitation in that way as well.”

Dr. Stanley Coren, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of British Columbia and author of How To Speak Dog: Mastering the Art of Dog-Human Communication, says some dogs do, in fact, impersonate our accents. 

Anecdotally, Coren says, “The Nordic breeds tend to do this more than some of the others — like the Huskies and that sort of thing. But all breeds do it to some extent. … If they interact with humans, they will sometimes mimic the sounds they hear around them.”

As an example, Coren remembers a former colleague who “would talk to her Standard Poodle much the same way that we would talk to a child. When she came home, she would always do that sort of sing-song talk.” Eventually, he says, the dog began to imitate its human’s cheerful Hellooooo’s. 

Let’s be clear: as amusing as the idea of dogs walking around with Southern drawls and New Yawk accents might be, our precious pooches will never sound exactly like us. According to Coren, dogs aren’t very good at making consonant sounds because their lower face is not built to be flexible in the same way ours is. Still, our dogs can hone in on our vowel sounds and cadence. Just bear in mind that Coren, like Silver, acknowledges that this is likely not “something we’re going to be able to measure.”

And as for what else determines how our dogs vocalize? Physiologically, it comes down to a few things including size (bigger dogs can produce lower sounds) as well as the structure of the oral cavity and the area above the vocal cords. Intent can also factor into how your dog sounds. According to Coren, there are three dimensions to a dog’s “speech”: pitch (lower vocalizations tend to be more threatening), duration (longer sounds tend to be more thought out and intentional) and repetition. If your dog repeats the sound a few times, it likely has more meaning than if they let it out just once. 

To Silver, the question of dogs and accents ties into another topic he’s wondered about for a long time: are there cultural differences between dogs living in certain areas? 

“When I read papers that are published all over the world from different research groups,” he says, he sometimes wonders, “Is this something that is emblematic of all dogs? Or are we actually tapping into some unique interaction?” 

Silver believes it’s possible that dogs raised in different cultures might behave differently. For example, a dog who’s grown up in a more collectivist community might exhibit more “prosocial behavior” — that is, behavior meant to help others — than another dog that’s grown up in a more individualistic environment. “There's no direct evidence for that right now,” Silver says. “It’s just a thought that I've been pondering.”

Sadly, it seems safe to bet that we won’t get a study on dogs and accents any time soon. But at least now we know that the doggie brogue is at least possible. And if anyone does want to fund a study and is looking for an amateur lead researcher, you know where to find me.