How Are Chimpanzees Taught to “Speak”?
… Jane Goodall, who spent years with gorillas and other monkeys, taught the monkeys to speak in sign language. Chimpanzees can communicate pretty effectively using sign language. If the brains of chimpanzees could enable them to talk in words using their mouths and their tongues, they still cannot communicate verbally because of phylogenetic differences in the larynx from man. I’m not at liberty to discuss phylogenetics. I just don’t have time for The Great Debate. ..
The chimpanzee, the most intelligent of all animals besides man, is even more clever than scientists had once thought. Trained chimps have shown that they can be taught to use a form of silent language to “speak” with their trainers. First, the chimps learned symbols for a number of simple words. These symbols were contained on
