We tortured a lot of apes to prove Noam Chomsky right: language was an innate human ability and not something other animals can learn. Even the apes that learned English words or sign never once asked a question.
Almost everything you’ve heard that an Ape “singed” was “interpreted” by a handler or trainer; the actual transcripts are not intelligible. I’m sure some researchers and trainers were acting in good faith, but you can see how much room to fudge there is.
Coco the gorilla was a fraud. (well, her handlers were frauds) for example, her handler often claimed that Coco would use rhymes to indicate what she “really” meant. The problem is that a native sign-language user would have no idea that two English words rhymed. Their are rhymes in sign, where the motions are similar, not the phonetics.
The problem is that a native sign-language user would have no idea that two English words rhymed
I do agree it’s a fraud, but I’d also say “native sign language speaker” is a bit of a misnomer. Comparing it to a human we’d be talking about someone with perfect hearing but born mute. IE if they were taught by someone who spoke out loud as they signed, they would understand ryming in ways that someone who was deaf obviously wouldn’t.
I seem to recall one of the primates we taught sign language to indicated that they liked cooked food more because it tasted better.
Sign language in primates is dubious at best.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
The point stands
You are very intelligent
👉 🤱
Especially if they use it to ask for steak well done.
He gets the Children’s Chimpanzee Menu
We tortured a lot of apes to prove Noam Chomsky right: language was an innate human ability and not something other animals can learn. Even the apes that learned English words or sign never once asked a question.
Almost everything you’ve heard that an Ape “singed” was “interpreted” by a handler or trainer; the actual transcripts are not intelligible. I’m sure some researchers and trainers were acting in good faith, but you can see how much room to fudge there is.
Coco the gorilla was a fraud. (well, her handlers were frauds) for example, her handler often claimed that Coco would use rhymes to indicate what she “really” meant. The problem is that a native sign-language user would have no idea that two English words rhymed. Their are rhymes in sign, where the motions are similar, not the phonetics.
I do agree it’s a fraud, but I’d also say “native sign language speaker” is a bit of a misnomer. Comparing it to a human we’d be talking about someone with perfect hearing but born mute. IE if they were taught by someone who spoke out loud as they signed, they would understand ryming in ways that someone who was deaf obviously wouldn’t.