If you want to be like Dr. Dolittle and talk to the animals, it might help to know that rats can tell the difference between languages.

Spanish researchers found that rats were able to use rhythm and intonation speech cues to distinguish between spoken Dutch and Japanese. This makes rats only the third type of mammal — along with humans and Tamarin monkeys — who have been shown to possess the ability to recognize different speech patterns.

The findings appear in the January issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes.

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The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has more about speech and language.

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