Language and Apes

Noam Chomsky said in his book, Language and Mind, that “When we study” human language, we are approaching what some might call the “human essence,” the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far as we know, unique to man.” However, before we can discuss this statement we must first establish what exactly language is and what aspects make it up.

Language is simply the manner through which we communicate. Communication is possible for humans through any number of forms. These include, but are not limited to, speech and sign language. Communication via language is necessary for a transfer of knowledge to take place. In order for this to occur it is necessary that more than one person comprehend the language in question, be it English, Xhousa or American Sign Language (ASL). If others can not comprehend what is being communicated to them it is because they do not understand the language, or dialect, being used.

For a language to be understood it is necessary for the speakers to have an understanding of the rules or grammar of the language in question. The sounds that are used to communicate make up the phonology. These sounds are attributed meaning. The forms and meanings of sounds are usually arbitrary, except in the case of onomatopoeia. Knowledge of the sound (or sign) system is not the only thing necessary for the understanding and usage of a language. The manner in which the words are structured is the morphology. Words are than used to make up phrases; the way in which this is done is governed by syntax. In addition a deep knowledge of the meaning and sounds of words, known as semantics, is necessary for the understanding of a language, as is knowledge of the words themselves, the lexicon.

Although there is at any given time a finite number of words in any given language there is an infinite number of combinations, or phrases, that can be produced. To produce new phrases, however, requires that the speaker has a knowledge, subconscious (in the case of a native speaker) or taught (in the case of a foreign speaker) of the rules of grammar, as stated above. Humans are capable of learning these rules with some ease, especially at a young age, and thus do not have to memorise phrases, but can use the rules of grammar and their knowledge of the lexicon to produce a phrase for any situation which their vocabulary covers. This is the creative aspect of language, as such humans are not limited to responding to external stimulus, such as a dog barking loudly and menacingly when there is an intrusion on their territory. A human, capable of language, could greet the intruder, warn the intruder off politely, threaten the intruders’ life, or even ask what the weather forecast is for the following day. The aspects of language that I have described above are in no way limited to a few languages, in fact they make up what is known as the general grammar and are universal for all languages, be it English, ASL or Xhousa.

As Fromkin and Rodman put it in their book, An Introduction to Language, “A language, then, consists of all the sounds, words, and possible sentences. When you know a language, you know the sounds, the words, and the rules for their combination.”

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Can then animals have language. Animals do communicate in order to survive, there are mating dances, warning cries and other ways in which animals communicate with each other. Do they, however, have language? For us to answer this question we must divide language into a number of aspects and see whether animals perform in a manner comparable to humans. Humans principally communicate to each other through the use of speech. This vocal-auditory system is not at all uncommon in the animal kingdom as a form of communication, a simple example is bird-song. Bird-song is used by the bird to demarcate its territory and advertise for a mate. Is this language? The use of sounds to communicate is not the only way in which to communicate, humans use sign language and bees “dance”. As such this is not an important as aspect of language when it comes to deciding whether animals can talk. Arbitrariness is an important aspect of language for humans but which is not unique to them. For the vervet monkey, different calls relating to different predators, but these calls bear no connection to the predator. This leads on to semantically, each predator of the vervet monkey has a different call assigned to it. In other, within the vocabulary of the vervet monkey the “word” for eagle is different from the word for “lion”. There is however a limit to this vocabulary. While there are hundreds of thousands of words in the English language, the vervet monkey has only about thirty. The next aspect is known as tradition. Is the language taught or is it learnt from others. A human child kept in isolation will not pick up English, or any other language for that manner. This may be because the child does not need to communicate with anyone simply because there is no one to communicate with. Birds on the other hand will develop bird-song in isolation. The bird-song will be abnormal, but it will recognisable. It appears that the communication systems of many animals are genetically in-built, in that they do not have to be in the presence of others for it to be triggered or learnt. Humans are known for beginning conversations about various topics, be it the weather to asking for directions. On the other hand, other animals only communicate when there is a reason, i.e. their communication is dependant on stimulus, e.g. a danger call by the vervet monkey. This is aspect is not however, unique to humans, . Humans also usually take tuns speaking or signing, as do birds. Humans also use double articulation, and once again so do birds. What does appear to be unique to humans is structure, and a dependence on that structure for the communication to be understood. Humans are also creative in there speech, we can come with an infinite number of phrases to discuss any topic, object or situation we can imagine. Animals cannot or do not. Bees only communicate about the horizontal distance of a food source, vervet monkeys limit there communication to little more than signals of danger, and birds, which are capable of producing an almost unlimited number of utterances… don’t. It seems then that animals are not capable of attaining all of the aspects of language that humans can even though some, such as birds to create a number. In the case of birds they don not seem to have any need or desire to communicate in a “human” fashion. As Jean Aitchison puts it in her book, The Articulate Mammal, “Above all, no animal can communicate creatively with another animal.” Of course it is always difficult to be sure, one way or the other, because we are studying forms of communication which are different and foreign to us. It would be easier to learn a foreign language from a native speaker of that language who does not speak English.

This difficulty, however, has not deterred people from trying. In fact, for over half-a-century humans have been trying to teach apes, are closest genetic “relatives” to speak our languages. Attempts to teach apes to physically speak failed because of the physical impossibility of the action. Basically, human speech is produced by manipulation of the larynx to produce sound waves. The chimps comparable physical feature is in a position that precludes the production of the sounds we humans produce. Before this fact was recognised an infant chimpanzee was exposed to language in tandem with a child of a similar age. Although the chimp never uttered a word, she did learn the meaning of over seventy single words.

Far more successful and fascinating were the attempts to teach apes language made two decades later. These attempts can be divided into those apes who were taught sign language, and those who were taught to use symbols to communicate. When we look at these efforts and their results we must be careful to distinguish whether the animal has uttered the words, for the sake of uttering them, or whether the utterances are meaningful in that the ape is attempting to communicate.

Those apes who were taught sign language were instructed in a modified form of ASL. It was found that in the early stages of learning that the chimps’ learning curve was comparable to that of an infant. It is apparent that the chimps had mastered a certain amount of semanticity, they understood the meanings of particular signs. However the vocabulary of these “students” never became very large, the most optimist estimates being over a hundred. In addition there is evidence of displacement, evidenced by the fact that a chimp, in this case Washoe, asked for an object that was absent. Although the chimps were capable of, and repeatedly did use great amounts of repetition, the creativity of the apes was limited to actual word strings of two, three and on rare occasions four words. The strings themselves did not have a set order or combination, something which indicates a lack of structure dependence, this however, can be explained away as being due to stress on the animal or imprecise training. In addition there was no turn taking, no real conversation.

In the case of apes that used symbols to communicate, there is evidence of creativity, semanticity and displacement, but little evidence of an mastery of structure-dependant operations. Although two chimps have learnt that when one of them presses a symbol the other can collect the object that is represented by that symbol. Although an impressive piece of communication, it is no different to the trainers filling in the role of one or the other animal since neither of the animals conversed simply in order to converse. This trait is apparent in all apes.

Although the apes did assimilate some of the aspects that make up language, they did so in a rudimentry and limited fashion. In addition no ape was cognisant with all of the rules of grammar discussd at the beginning of this essay, subconsciously or consciously. The human manner of speech seems unnatural for the ape and a great deal of effort is necessary to obtain limited results. It is also apparent that apes do not need a sophisticated system of language to be apes, but that for humans to be humans, we do. As such it appears that apes, along with the rest of the animal Kingdom, excluding humans, cannot “speak” as humans can. We must then ask why this is so and perhaps consider why it is that we seem to be unique in that we can communicate just for the sake of talking. Perhaps Chomsky is correct.