Are Apes People Too?

[Lotan]

Meet Chantek ...



Chantek isn't just any old orang, he knows ASL. Not only can he talk to humans, he can even talk to his buddy Koko, a signing gorilla.
Creationists will describe hominid fossils as entirely human or entirely ape. I'm curious what criteria they use to decide.
To put it another way - if these apes can communicate with humans, isn't it then the duty of good christians to see that they receive the gospel message?

(Here's Chantek's website in case the first link expires.)

[USIncognito]

On the topic of dolphins, apes, and other "talking" animals, I think we may be confusing communication with language. Animals are indeed capable of communication, sometimes using quite sophisticated codes, but they're not capable of language. What's the difference? A communication code has no grammar. Languages have grammar. All of them. A language without grammar is a contradiction in terms.

Sorry for sniping and for what will seem like a very tangental response, but I have limited time on-line and will try and get back to your previous post, but I always have a problem with the claim that animals lack language since we really don't understand - despite our thinking we do that animals cannot employ linguistic nuances like grammar, inflection, homonyms and idiom.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned my cats here or in other forums, but they definately communicate with me through different verbalizations - yet they never communicate with each other. The latter fact might be because they don't get along all that well and my apartment is small, but the only real comminication I see is when the more docile of the two meows plaintively when the other attacks/play attacks her.

Over the years they have lived with me however, I have been able to discern between "feed me," "pet me," "don't scratch me there," "why can't I go outside anymore" and "I'm comfortable in your recliner - don't move me out of your way."

Maybe they have other meows asking me to discuss string theory or the taste of fresh mouse vs. the processed fish and chicken, but I just don't understand it. Similarly, I don't understand the context and nuance of Elephants stroking the bones of their dead herdmates, but that doesn't mean there isn't a linguistic component to their actions and verbalizations comperable to - at least primative - human speech.

My ceveat is that I will admit I'm arguing from a negative evidence stand point which I always decry Creationists and IDers on, but I've yet to see a really good reason for denying our fellow sentient beings verbalizations as anything less than language.

[Cathar1950]

I can identify with your cats reminds me of when they take my remote.
I an not sure that when animals communicate they don't have rules even if they are rudimentary relative to humans. People(humans) are special to us. Well most of us. I try not to hang around people who don't like people.
Sometimes out of repect but mostly it isn't usually enjoyable.
I think what we are trying to do here is extend that to out fellow creatures.
Which seems perfectly reasonable to me. I do love a good steak and turkey. If yo have milked enough cows hauled enough ay and shoveled enought manure you don't mind eating them. Unless you get attached, Which happens.

[USIncognito]

I can identify with your cats reminds me of when they take my remote.

As far as pet intelligence goes, my intimate knowledge is limited to cats, but one of mine wound up on the balcony of a neighbor several stairwells from where my apartment is. I got home from work on night and heard a familiar plaintive "Rraarw!" I knew it was Scarlett. The people in the other apartment weren't home so they couldn't let her out for me to take her home. She eventually jumped from a third story balcony so we could go home together.

Scarlett also has figured out how the door functions and both she and Hatshepsut know that fresh cool water comes from the kitchen and bathroom sink faucets.

I an not sure that when animals communicate they don't have rules even if they are rudimentary relative to humans.

I'm not sure about complex grammar, but the example I thought of at work last night (while contemplating this thread) was bees. Despite having "primative" insect brains, they can still communicate direction, distance and substance of food or water to their hivemates. At the very least that connotes a vocabulary...

An article I read in the newspaper some years ago discussed how many U.S. police agencies were getting their German Sheppards from Germany and Eastern Europe since to many native born ones had weak hips and genetic problems. The article stated that the American handlers had to learn to give the dogs commands that were either in German, Czech or Polish or had to master giving the commands in accent, stressing certain consonants.

As far as eating animals go - I really like meat to much. The seminal moment for reaching my emotional homeostasis was in Dec. 31 1999. I was working and made a dinner plate with a catered chicken breast I couldn't finish. I haven't always lived up to it, but I swore that night that if any animal died for my dinner - I'd at least give it the resepct of eating all of it's part that I was going to consume.

I'll gladly throw away a piece of rotten fruit or vegetable though since those are basically ovaries/embryos and not living beings who died to provide my dinner. Speaking of dinner (in night shift timewarp) it's time for me to have mine... Mmmm Bologa and cheddar...

[Jose]

Jose, I can't believe you said it, though. It is terrible chauvinism to assert that sign language is not "true" language, that there's any barrier whatsoever between a speaker of a grammatical sign language and "abstract concepts." Sign languages are fully grammatical, and can handle any utterance that a spoken language can. They follow the pattern of "creolization" just as spoken pidgin languages do when a generation of children is brought up in a pidgin-linguistic environment.

You've got it backward. To acquire (a modern) language, a being must have a grasp of abstract concepts in the first place. Apes evidently don't. Therefore no ape has truly "learned" a language. (see post re: Nim Chimpsky above, and the comments of that researcher)

Thanks for de-lurking, CJO! I did not mean to imply anti-sign-language chauvinism, so I'm glad you brought it up. I agree entirely that the abstract concepts that we have developed over the last few millenia are readily expressed by signing, and that true sign languages can be very complex. But, I don't speak of sign languages that have developed alongside spoken language.

The trick for a non-speaking species is developing entirely abstract concepts in the absence of any fore-knowledge that they might exist, or any way of communicating besides making miscellaneous noises and motions.

I agree that it takes a capacity to think about abstract concepts before one can discuss them using language. However, my reading of the literature indicates that the consensus is that one (i.e. a species) must be able to communicate extremely effectively before they can move beyond concrete thought. Our pre-linguate ancestors (lacking the ability for speech) could probably plan hunts and fights, probably referring to several days' span as some number of "suns." They could probably use signing and stick-in-the-sand diagrams to map out strategies for dividing into groups and attacking from two directions at once. But could they talk about "truth"? Could they invent the concept of god, or heaven or eternity? Could they even consider the possibility of trying to figure out how reproduction works, with sperm fertilizing the egg, followed by cell divisions, differential gene expression, etc.? [I know, that's "science," but it's still conceptual, and beyond the grasp of those who cannot develop words for things they can't see.]

They were very good at transmitting skills to each other, such as flint-knapping. But this is, again, concrete and immediately-visible. It is unlikely that they could have looked at fossils, and thought about the world looking very different 70 million years ago. It's too abstract a concept. They could not have sat around asking "what the heck is this, and how did it come to be?"

So, you're right that no ape has truly learned a language, in the sense of not having learned to discuss philosophy. But if we're going to define "learning a language" as "knowing enough vocabulary and concepts to discuss lots of tough subjects," then I fear that we have to conclude that a vast number of humans haven't either. [For example, to write "informed consent" statements for humans involved in research projects, one is required to use English at no higher than 8th-grade level. Even high school English is too complicated for great many Americans. I think reading at or below 8th grade level, as an adult, qualifies as not really having learned the language.]