Some primates can use a few signs from deaf language already, and combine them to make almost a sentence. The foundation seems there already. We also have no idea how much the dolphin language can convey. Your conclusion seems very definitive for a question that I meant very hypothetical and so many missing variables.
Yes, I'm well aware of the language abilities of other animals. (I'm a retired AI researcher with a Ph.D.) Animals are quite remarkable, but there is still an enormous gulf between them and us. A human child can learn any human language and form complex sentences well before age 2. Well before age 5 they can reason abstractly about cause and effect. No other animal gets close to that ability over their entire lifetime even with intense training.
It's something I studied. NLP is a sub-discipline of AI, and animal studies are used to inform NLP research. I'm not saying that this makes me right, only that my speculations are not completely uninformed.
