.... I say they can and do already speak a language. ....
And you're wrong.
Just because you, a human, can't understand their language does not mean they don't have a language. Whales have a language, monkeys use sign language, porpoises. Might even say Dogs have writing, in the form of their urine.
No. I've told you, there is a difference between communicating and using language. You are mistaken.
Define communicating.
Define language.
Can't communicate without language.
Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.
Kanzi, language-reared male bonobo, converses with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh in 2006 using a portable "keyboard" of arbitrary symbols that Kanzi associates with words.
Kanzi has learned hundreds of arbitrary symbols representing words, objects, and familiar people (including the generic "Visitor").
Although Kanzi learned to communicate using a keyboard with lexigrams, Kanzi also picked up some
American Sign Language from watching videos of
Koko the gorilla, who communicates using sign language to her keeper
Penny Patterson; Savage-Rumbaugh did not realize Kanzi could sign until he signed "You, Gorilla, Question" to anthropologist
Dawn Prince-Hughes, who had previously worked closely with
gorillas. Based on trials performed at Yerkes Primate Research Center, Kanzi was able to correctly identify symbols 89-95% of the time.
Kanzi cannot speak vocally in a manner that is comprehensible to most humans, as bonobos have different vocal tracts from humans, which makes them incapable of reproducing most of the vocal sounds humans make. At the same time, it was noticed that every time Kanzi communicated with humans with specially designed graphic symbols, he also produced some vocalization. It was later found out that Kanzi was actually producing the articulate equivalent of the symbols he was indicating, although in a very high pitch and with distortions.
Kanzi[edit]
Kanzi, a
bonobo, is believed to understand more human language than any other nonhuman animal in the world. Kanzi apparently learned by eavesdropping on the keyboard lessons researcher
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh was giving to his adoptive mother. Kanzi learned to communicate with a
Lexigram board, pushing symbols that stand for words. The board is wired to a computer, so the word is then vocalized out loud by the computer. This helps Kanzi develop his vocabulary and enables him to communicate with researchers.
One day, Rumbaugh used the computer to say to Kanzi, "Can you make the dog bite the snake?" It is believed Kanzi had never heard this sentence before. In answering the question, Kanzi searched among the objects present until he found a toy dog and a toy snake, put the snake in the dog's mouth, and used his thumb and finger to close the dog's mouth over the snake. In 2001,
Alexander Fiske-Harrison, writing in the
Financial Times, observed that Kanzi was "asked by an invisible interrogator through head-phones (to avoid cueing) to identify 35 different items in 180 trials. His success rate was 93 per cent."
[26] In further testing, beginning when he was 7 ½ years old, Kanzi was asked 416 complex questions, responding correctly over 74% of the time. Kanzi has been observed verbalizing a
meaningful noun to his sister.
[27]
Question asking[edit]
Despite their impressive (although still sometimes disputed) achievements, Kanzi and other apes, who participated in similar experiments,
failed to ask questions themselves.
Joseph Jordania suggested that the ability to ask questions is probably the central cognitive element that distinguishes human and animal cognitive abilities.
[28] (However, a parrot named
Alex was apparently able to ask simple questions. He asked what color he was, and learned "grey" after being told the answer six times.
[29]) Enculturated apes, who underwent extensive language training programs, successfully learned to
answer quite complex questions and requests (including question words "who", "what", "where"), although so far they failed to learn how to
ask questions themselves. For example,
David and Anne Premackwrote: "Though she [Sarah] understood the question, she did not herself ask any questions – unlike the child who asks interminable questions, such as What that? Who making noise? When Daddy come home? Me go Granny's house? Where puppy? Sarah never delayed the departure of her trainer after her lessons by asking where the trainer was going, when she was returning, or anything else".
[30] The ability to ask questions is sometimes assessed in relation to comprehension of
syntactic structures. Jordania suggested that this approach is not justified, as (1) questioning is primarily a cognitive ability, and (2) questions can be asked without the use of syntactic structures (with the use of specific
intonation only). It is widely accepted that the first questions are asked by humans during their early infancy, at the pre-syntactic, one word stage of
language development, with the use of question
intonation.
[31]
Great ape language - Wikipedia
