Paging Dr. Dolittle

Tell your problems to your dog or cat, and you’re unlikely to get a response. The motorist yelling at a squirrel to get off the road doesn’t really expect the little guy to learn traffic rules. There’s no expectation that the pigeon in the park will thank you for those bread crumbs or that the raccoon in your attic will take offence to being insulted. Such communication goes one way. To talk with animals would be to have a conversation that goes both ways.

In Parler avec les animaux (Talking with ­animals), the idea of mutual exchange anchors an insightful collection of essays, one where the line between human and non-human blurs. Somewhat surprisingly, there is little linguistic analysis or investigation among the ­contributions. Koko, the western lowland gorilla whose signing ability landed her two National Geographic covers, is never mentioned. Neither is...