On monkeys, and language
Oct. 11th, 2005 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbToday has not been the best day ever, reasons for which I shan't enter into. Suffice to say, commuting is Not Good.
In my Introduction to Language Studies lecture today, the professor said something that caught my attention. About linguistics being the study of the science of language, and 'whether it was possible to teach monkeys to use language'.
I really, really wanted to say, They already do. And not just the human ones. Or what're all those noise that monkeys make, if not language? Just because we don't understand them doesn't mean they don't carry the same meanings as some parts of human speech.
I mean, Want! Go away! Hurts! Danger! Food! Sex! has to be pretty much the universal basics of communication. I think so, anyway. Since my cat can convey all that and more in a variety of meeps, mrrrps, and mraows. (And yes, the last too, even though he's been neutered)
In my Introduction to Language Studies lecture today, the professor said something that caught my attention. About linguistics being the study of the science of language, and 'whether it was possible to teach monkeys to use language'.
I really, really wanted to say, They already do. And not just the human ones. Or what're all those noise that monkeys make, if not language? Just because we don't understand them doesn't mean they don't carry the same meanings as some parts of human speech.
I mean, Want! Go away! Hurts! Danger! Food! Sex! has to be pretty much the universal basics of communication. I think so, anyway. Since my cat can convey all that and more in a variety of meeps, mrrrps, and mraows. (And yes, the last too, even though he's been neutered)
