Unit xXXI

Is Language Unique to Humans?

According to Dr Sue Savage-Rumbaugh at Georgia State University, humans are not the only species capable of language. She carried out an extensive training and testing programme with a bonobo chimpanzee called Kanzi, who, by the age of six, had mastered a vocabulary of 200 words along with a series of meaningful gestures. (Since chimpanzees, like all primates, lack vocal chords, Kanzi was taught to use a keyboard and press symbols as a means of communicating.) The testing also involved commands being given by hidden speakers, so the research team could affirm that Kanzi was not just responding to contextual cues. It was reported that Kanzi responded accurately to 74 per cent of the complex questions that were put to him.

However, there are many who are far from convinced by this research. Among them is linguist Noam Chomsky who believes that only humans possess the innate cognitive ability to both comprehend and produce language. He compares human children with apes: the former learn to speak rapidly and can produce original sentences, but the primates find even the learning of a few words extremely challenging. Furthermore, Chomsky states that the ability to use individual symbols does not equate to the ability to recognize syntax. Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker is also sceptical and believes that Kanzi has merely learnt to behave in a way that will earn him a reward. In another experiment with a chimp called Washoe, his trainers were convinced he was capable of using American Sign Language. But Pinker points lo the fact that a deaf researcher who studied Washoe reported that the chimp was not using sign language, but actually his own set of gestures.

Post-reading tasks