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Apes, Men, and Language (Pelican)

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Freelance writer Eugene Linden wrote this highly optimistic 1974 book (subtitled "How teaching chimpanzees to 'talk' alters man's notions of his place in nature") about the various ape language experiments that were prominent in the 1970s. He states in the Introduction, "It is the purpose of this book to present what is known so far about the chimpanzee's skills in using language and then to make sense of these achievements."

Concerning R. Allen and Beatrice Gardner's experiments with the chimp Washoe---who learned to use American Sign Language (ASL) to make multiple word combinations---Linden writes, "Between April 1967 and June 1969, the Gardners recorded 245 different combinations involving three or more signs. About half of these longer combinations consisted of adding an appeal sign such as 'please' to a two-word combination such as 'Roger tickle'..."

He notes criticisms of the work, such as those of Maurice Temerlin's work with Lucy: "Critics have suggested that any preference for word order shown by the chimpanzee result from imitation of human models without any understanding of the significance of word order. Many people are tempted to write off all evidence of simian cognitive ability as dumb mimicry..."

David Premack's studies with Sarah were critiqued by Roger Brown, who observed, "her feats ... are not communication but 'a set of carefully programmed language games.' She does not do anything except when asked, she performs with the same steady 75 to 80 per cent accuracy regardless of the complexity of the behavior involved ... Brown wonders whether her original learning of the proper response to questions might have involved non-linguistic cueing..."

He concludes the book on the note, "I have described the scientific manifestation of that successor as a Darwinian paradigm. It is rooted in nature rather than in the world of displacement, and it is a paradigm in accord with Washoe, who offers evidence of our behavioral continuity with nature. It remains to be seen when the culture forecast by this Darwinian paradigm will appear."

Linden later wrote a more pessimistic, somewhat sad report on these kinds of experiments. (See Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments.)