Could animals talk?

[Essex]

Did the fox speak?

I believe he 'thought' what the hobbits were doing.

A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed.
'Hobbits!' he thought. 'Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer behind this.' He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.

Now to go totally off tangent, but do we need to be able to SPEAK in order to have structured THOUGHTS? I've always wondered if a human brought up in the wild by animals would have any 'thought' processes at all.

As I said, totally off tangent, but something I've always been fascinated with.