By Chris Cosci

As children, we were taught animal sounds. Cows go moo. Ducks go quack. And cats go meow. We never had reason to question them, and those sounds have become ingrained in our minds. Just as we know our ABCs, we know that a sheep goes baa.

But what sound does a human make? Sure, it's easy for us to simplify an animal's extensive vocabulary down to one word. But let's say the tables were turned. If the sounds we made had to be boiled down to one generic word, what would it be?

My guess is that certain animals would have different ideas of what that sound would be. Animals in zoos and theme parks would probably say that all humans make this long "ooooooh" sound. Pet dogs would probably think that all humans go "no! no! no!" And wild bears would think of us as jumpy creatures that make a screeching "aaaaaah" sound.

Interestingly enough, we have come up with a few of our own terms. There's the droning mantra of "blah, blah, blah." There's the humorous response of "ha ha ha." And, possibly the most accurate representation of all time, there's Charlie Brown's teacher who gives entire speeches using a sort of "mwa" sound.

What really makes it difficult to pin us down is our extensive language. Because we have such complex minds, our civilization has decided that we need an equally complex language so that we can all communicate. So we developed words. We trained our minds and our vocal chords to make millions of sound combinations that we use to express our thoughts.

Unfortunately, this concept of language was apparently developed by many different people in many different locations at the same time. So instead of one common set of words and sounds, different civilizations came up with entirely separate languages. And thus began the language barrier. Now, two members of the exact same species can run into each other, and be completely unable to communicate with each other. Of course, there are some people who speak the exact same language and are still completely unable to communicate with each other. But that's another story.

Yet this raises another point. Can animals from different parts of the world communicate with each other, or do they have language barriers, too? If a pigeon from New York were to travel to Venice, would the New York pigeon be able to communicate with the Venetian pigeons, or would it be thinking, "I can't understand a word these guys are cooing"?

And what about culture differences? Is it possible that, in some countries, dogs are offended when another dog smells their rear end? If an American dog were to travel and sniff like he's used to, would he be creating an international faux pas? How would he know?

While you think about that, let's go back to humans for a moment. Is it possible that our complex minds and our invention of language have actually made it harder for us to communicate? It seems that just about every other animal on Earth gets along fine without a language as complex as ours. Of course, this is still assuming that all they do is make the one generic sound we have applied to them. For all we know, when we hear a cow say moo, he might actually be putting some bovine inflection on the sound that only other cows can translate. Maybe all animals do have languages as extensive as ours, and we're just unable to interpret the subtle differences.

And that brings us back to our first point. Do animals have one sound they apply to humans? Most likely, we'll never know. But if they do, whatever it is, let's just hope it's not "duh."