{"id":93615,"date":"2025-04-19T04:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T04:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/19\/come-gimme-why-do-we-shrug-when-apes-cross-the-language-barrier\/"},"modified":"2025-04-19T04:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T04:44:11","slug":"come-gimme-why-do-we-shrug-when-apes-cross-the-language-barrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/19\/come-gimme-why-do-we-shrug-when-apes-cross-the-language-barrier\/","title":{"rendered":"Come-Gimme! Why Do We Shrug When Apes Cross the Language Barrier?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Yves here. Perhaps one answer to why researchers are underwhelmed by the linguistic accomplishments of apes is that, as fellow primates, we set unduly high expectations for them. Another might be that parrots are so good at pronunciation, and when highly trained, communication, that apes don\u2019t seem as impressive as they ought to be given their higher cognition level. YouTube has a decent number of videos of high-vocabulary parrots, some as below who weren\u2019t even to be so articulate:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/x0B76rvI_Jk?si=XPbsrXCQlreBVMFt\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But the relative performance of parrots may simply say that humans are not yet very good at instructing the great apes.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>By Michael Erard, the author of \u201cBye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words.\u201d His previous books include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Um-Slips-Stumbles-Verbal-Blunders\/dp\/0375423567\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> \u201cUm \u2026: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders,\u201d<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Babel-No-More-Extraordinary-Language\/dp\/1451628269\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> \u201cBabel No More: The Search for the World\u2019s Most Extraordinary Language Learners.\u201d<\/a> He is a researcher at the Center for Language Studies at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Originally published at <a href=\"https:\/\/undark.org\/2025\/04\/18\/wilo-apes-cross-language-barrier\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Undark<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>In many Western societies, parents eagerly await their children\u2019s first words, then celebrate their arrival. There\u2019s also a vast scientific and popular attention to early child language. Yet there is (and was) surprisingly little hullabaloo sparked by the first words and hand signs displayed by great apes.<\/p>\n<p>As far back as 1916, scientists have been exploring the linguistic abilities of humans\u2019 closest relatives by raising them in language-rich environments. But the first moments in which these animals did cross a communication threshold created relatively little fuss in both the scientific literature and the media. Why?<\/p>\n<p>Consider, for example, the first sign by Washoe, a young chimpanzee that was captured in the wild and transported in 1966 to a laboratory at the University of Nevada, where she was studied by two researchers, Allen Gardner and Beatrice Gardner. Washoe was taught American Sign Language in family-like settings that would be conducive to communicative situations. \u201cHer human companions,\u201d wrote the Gardners in 1969, \u201cwere to be friends and playmates as well as providers and protectors, and they were to introduce a great many games and activities that would be likely to result in maximum interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the Gardners wrote about the experiments, they did note her first uses of specific signs, such as \u201ctoothbrush,\u201d that didn\u2019t seem to echo a sign a human had just used. These moments weren\u2019t ignored, yet you have to pay very close attention to their writings to find the slightest awe or enthusiasm. Fireworks it is not.<\/p>\n<p>Her first sign \u2014 a begging gesture \u2014 appears about halfway through an article that the Gardners published in the journal Science, in a table of signs that Washoe used \u201creliably.\u201d The first gesture that Washoe made spontaneously, \u201cindependently of any deliberate training,\u201d was an open hand extended, palm up. She did this in situations when she wanted some help or if the humans had an object she wanted.<\/p>\n<p>Later, she added a wrist movement to the sign. A \u201cbeckoning,\u201d the Gardners described it. It was easily added to the list of her words. The scientists called this first sign \u201ccome-gimme,\u201d describing it as a \u201cbeckoning motion, with wrist or knuckles as a pivot.\u201d It\u2019s almost as if she were babbling, reaching for motor control itself, then finally achieving it. <em>Come-gimme<\/em>. She was between 1 and 2 years old at the time \u2014 about the same age as many humans\u2019 spoken first words.<\/p>\n<p>The Gardners had an elaborate protocol for formally agreeing that Washoe had acquired a sign: It had to have \u201ca reported frequency of at least one appropriate and spontaneous occurrence each day over a period of 15 consecutive days. Based on this protocol, her three other signs in the first seven months were \u201cmore,\u201d \u201cup,\u201d and \u201csweet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>True, the Gardners were sober scientists, but there was little celebratory flavor in their reports, nor in most of the media accounts that followed. Even her obituaries omitted it. There were exceptions, however, including a 1974 documentary titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymotion.com\/video\/x88kfb9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The First Signs of Washoe<\/a>.\u201d Another came from Jane Hill, a linguistic anthropologist who closed a 1978 article on ape language with a loose bit of hyperbolic flourish: \u201cIt is unlikely that any of us will in our lifetimes see again a scientific breakthrough as profound in its impli\u00adcations as the moment when Washoe, the baby chimpanzee, raised her hand and signed COME-GIMME to a comprehending human.\u201d Profound? Few others seemed to think so.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p>The first human word pronounced by an ape appears to have been the French word \u201cfeu,\u201d for fire, even if calling it a \u201cword\u201d is a stretch, since the young chimpanzee Moses didn\u2019t know what it meant. An American named Richard Garner bought him on an expedition to west-central Africa in the late 19th century, and Moses only knew that his human friend would give him corned beef if he made certain sounds with his mouth.<\/p>\n<p>Garner, who was investigating \u201cmonkey\u201d language, was disappointed that Moses had not progressed further, yet the articulation of feu was \u201cquite as nearly perfect as most people of other tongues ever learn to speak the same word in French,\u201d he wrote. Other sounds made by Moses were \u201cmamma\u201d; the German word for how, \u201cwie\u201d; and the word for mother in a local Ghanaian language, \u201cnkgwe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1909, a captive chimpanzee named Peter was brought to psychologist Lightner Witmer at his clinic in Philadelphia. Dressed in top hat and wearing roller skates (mainly so he wouldn\u2019t escape by climbing things), saying \u201cmama\u201d was among his tricks.<\/p>\n<p>A colleague of Witmer\u2019s, a tattooed adventuring anthropologist named William Furness, also tried his hand at the talking ape game. Over six months, he taught a female orangutan to pronounce \u201cpapa\u201d by pressing its lips together, until one day she did something amazing: her first word! \u201cOne day of her own accord, out of lesson time, she said \u2018Papa\u2019 quite distinctly and repeated it on command,\u2019\u2019 Furness wrote. \u201cOf course, I praised and petted her enthusiastically; she never forgot it after that and finally recognized it as my name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>About four decades later, two Americans, Keith and Catherine Hayes, home-reared a chimpanzee named Viki, treating her like a like a human child to test her developmental capacities. After training her to grunt on command (\u201cspeak\u201d), the Hayeses taught her to vocalize \u201cmama\u201d by manipulating her lips. \u201cShe soon learned to make the proper mouth movements herself, and could then say \u2018mama\u2019 unaided \u2014 softly, and hoarsely, but quite acceptably.\u201d<sup>\u2060<\/sup> Her other three words: \u201cpapa,\u201d \u201ccup,\u201d \u201cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But reactions to these performances were subdued, compared to the florid reception that human first words typically receive. In the early 20th century, a chemistry professor named W. G. Bateman became so enamored of his children\u2019s language that he published a small collection of first words. \u201cAt one moment something <em>is not<\/em> and at the next moment it<em>is<\/em> and we do not know what miracle fills the infinitesimal gap,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Another famous first word by an ape came from Kanzi, a bonobo born at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in 1980, then moved to the Language Research Center at Georgia State University. A young scientist there, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, had been teaching chimpanzees how to use a keyboard with visual symbols called lexigrams. Savage-Rumbaugh also taught Matata, Kanzi\u2019s adopted mother, who proved to be a bad lexigram learner.<\/p>\n<p>To everyone\u2019s surprise, Kanzi began using lexigrams, having learned them indirectly. His first button push was for the symbol \u201cchase,\u201d Savage-Rumbaugh recalled: \u201cHe would look over the board, touch this symbol, then glance about to see if I had noticed and whether I would agree to chase him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only after Kanzi and Matata were separated did the extent of his abilities become clear. On his first day alone with the keyboard, he used it 120 times. \u201cOne of the first things he did that morning was to activate \u2018apple,\u2019 then \u2018chase,\u2019\u201d Savage-Rumbaugh wrote in a 1994 book about Kanzi. \u201cHe then picked up an apple, looked at me, and ran away with a play grin on his face.\u201d Within four months, he had learned to use more than 20 symbols. He was just shy of 3 years old. And in his lifetime, he would learn hundreds more.<\/p>\n<p>In her account, Savage-Rumbaugh listed the first 10 words that Kanzi, Mulika, and Kanzi\u2019s half-sister, Panbanisha, had produced. \u201cIn general,\u201d she wrote, \u201cthe apes\u2019 first words reflected their own particular interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And those interests varied widely. Kanzi\u2019s first 10 words were \u201corange, peanut, banana, apple, bedroom, chase, Austin, sweet potato, raisin, ball.\u201d Panbanisha\u2019s were \u201cmilk, chase, open, tickle, grape, bite, dog, surprise, yogurt, soap.\u201d And those of Mulika were \u201cmilk, key, t-room, surprise, juice, water, grape, banana, go, staff office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Critics of the results of these ape language experiments argued that the utterances of a 2-year-old child didn\u2019t qualify as <a href=\"https:\/\/undark.org\/2024\/08\/02\/book-review-how-human-language-evolved\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">language<\/a> yet<sup>\u2060<\/sup>, and in the early days of Chomskyan linguistics even human first words weren\u2019t interesting because they gave no inkling of linguistic structure. Therefore, it was the strings of signs or symbols by apes that received far more attention. \u201cThe production of novel combinatoral utterances,\u201d Sue Savage-Rumbaugh wrote, \u201cis a powerful communicative process that characterizes all languages.\u201d And if the prize is grammar, the lonely word loses currency.<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, a combination of signs brought significant attention to Washoe in the 1960s. Apparently, she signed \u201cwater\u201d and \u201cbird\u201d upon seeing a swan. Roger Brown, a noted Harvard psychologist who had studied word learning in children, said at the time this two-word sequence \u201cwas like getting an S.O.S. from outer space.\u201d (No such hyperbole was directed at Washoe\u2019s first signs.)<\/p>\n<p>More than a decade later, an orangutan named Chantek at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga built a vocabulary of about 150 modified American Sign Language signs. H. Lyn Miles, an anthropologist who worked with Chantek, told me she reported downplaying his first words for several reasons. One was the fear that attributing \u201cfirst words\u201d to animals would be perceived as anthropomorphism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wanted the apes to be precocious. But since they were not our biological children, we didn\u2019t harp like human parents and repeatedly encourage first words like \u2018mama\u2019 and \u2018dada,\u2019 or even \u2018up,\u2019 as we urged them into our loving arms,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n<p>Critics of ape language research also maintain that the apes only learn words to get what they want, not to ask questions about objects or persons, or perform social functions. Indeed, Chantek\u2019s first words were FOOD-EAT and DRINK. \u201cWe somewhat underplayed the first words,\u201d Miles wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Another reason for her reluctance to focus on first words was sexism, Miles reported. Some female scientists battled the perception that they couldn\u2019t be objective or nonemotional, so they went out of their way to not be perceived as maternal. \u201cThe last thing we needed in this patriarchal scientific culture was to appear as if we were over-bonding with the ape as if he\/she were a child and highlight \u2018first words\u2019 like a baby shower or getting baby\u2019s first teeth,\u201d Miles wrote.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, she told me, her personal reaction to Chantek\u2019s first words were \u201cjoyful and ecstatic.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p>Buried in our language histories are ideas about first words that we didn\u2019t know we had. One is the notion that \u201cmama\u201d \u2014 meaning mother \u2014 is everyone\u2019s natural first word. Another is that animals can\u2019t have first words. It violates a category, somehow; it asks us to believe something that we can\u2019t quite recognize. Some scientists who have worked with apes did, of course, but they weren\u2019t ever able to persuade their scientific peers and other doubters that the animals were communicative agents, legitimate speakers, valid conversational partners.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, the first symbols, words, or signs of apes have remained significant parts of the researchers\u2019 private experiences. One researcher, Mary Lee Jensvold, had her first experience in 1985 with a signing ape with Koko, a gorilla who had been taught to sign by Penny Patterson in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had just had a conversation with a nonhuman, and its impact on me was far more significant than the details of the conversation,\u201d she remembered later. She felt as if she\u2019d spoken with a child.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually she would work with a number of chimpanzees in graduate school and afterword, including Washoe. In a chapter in the 2020 anthology \u201cChimpanzee Chronicles,\u201d Jensvold recalled entering Washoe\u2019s room when the ape was close to death in late October, 2007. Deborah Fouts, a scientist who had taken over from the Gardners, said, \u201cWashoe, Mary Lee is here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Washoe lifted her arm toward Jensvold. The human told the chimpanzee how much she loved her. \u201cThen,\u201d Jensvold wrote, \u201cshe took her last breath.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"printfriendly pf-alignleft\"><a href=\"#\" rel=\"nofollow\" onclick=\"window.print(); return false;\" title=\"Printer Friendly, PDF &amp; Email\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none;-webkit-box-shadow:none; -moz-box-shadow: none; box-shadow:none; padding:0; margin:0\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.printfriendly.com\/buttons\/print-button-gray.png\" alt=\"Print Friendly, PDF &amp; Email\"\/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/2025\/04\/come-gimme-why-do-we-shrug-when-apes-cross-the-language-barrier.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yves here. Perhaps one answer to why researchers are underwhelmed by the linguistic accomplishments of apes is that, as fellow primates, we set unduly high<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-spotlight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}