I had a little mutt terrier type who lived 15 years. She yapped and barked but never made voice sounds until after she was 10 years old she was trying to get my attention because she wanted to go outside. I ignored her and she groaned a couple of times and barked a couple of times, then when I was looking she seemed to take a deep breath and held her mouth as if she were trying to purse her lips and did a several seconds modulated vocalization that sounded awfully like she was trying to imitate speech. I was impressed and jumped up and walked quickly to the door and opened it and she trotted out. After that when she couldn’t get someone’s attention for something she would repeat the performance and after a couple of years I could identify specific sounds for specific wants. I knew she was pretty hi IQ for a dog because over the years I had watched her solve fairly complicated problems. And she learned her most complicated tricks after she was pretty old.
WOW, that is incredible and very cool.