It’s a great article, and the prairie dogs are fascinating (and adorable) little creatures, but with all due respect to Doctor Dolittle, the assertion that non-human animals have language is indeed nonsense.
Animals have no language, despite the occasional complexity of their communication. The error these scientists and journalists make in attributing language to animals is an easy error to make, but it is an error nonetheless. The error lies in the failure to distinguish between designators and signals.