@campegg yeah, I think I agree too! 🤣🤓
Many layers and mirrors and trapdoors…the definition process…but, yes, both intelligence and language agency of some sort can be ascribed to many creatures not only some bigger mammals. Of course I’m willing to stretch the meaning of language to include other phenomena we would normally consider completely out of domain. DNA is a sort of language to describe how to build stuff, in this view.

But I find it inescapable that for any intelligence to be detected and accepted it must come through the medium of language.