Re: Apes and language

On Jan 23, 1:34 pm, "heliogabalus" <forbid...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:1587408c-dcdb-4bbf-88af-0e9539987e3f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jan 23, 9:00 am, "heliogabalus" <forbid...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

/cut/

My apologies for the long quotation.
You should apologize for posting it at all, since it offers nothing
but the standard stories of the apologists. Is it not significant that
ASL-speakers are unable to see any ASL in the signing of Koko or other
sign-trained apes?

In that case I withdraw my apologies: the quotation wasn't  long
enough for your understanding.
The article refers to the academical skepticism related to sign-trained apes
only in passing, to point up the doubts of  E. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh about the
long bias afflicting such modality of research, according to the more recent
studies.
But the gist concerns the capacity of symbolism in monkeys:
Bonobos disfigure vegetation with the aim of suggesting the direction to
take; now, to use plants as symbols IS a form of  language.

Only if you define "language" so broadly that some other word will be
needed for what humans, uniquely, do.

Bonobos can communicate with humans by the mean of a keyboard:
"One of the methods in which researchers at Great Ape Trust will communicate
with bonobos is through the use of lexigram boards. Each lexigram, or
symbol, represents a word. However, the symbols are not necessarily
characteristic of the word they represent. Researchers and bonobos
communicate with three lexigram panels containing 384 symbols and words. The
development of computer-monitored lexigram keyboards was a key component to
studies conducted at the Language Research Center at Georgia State
University in Atlanta."http://www.greatapetrust.org/bonobo/language/index.php

That was a very long time ago, and nothing has come of it.

 >Is it not significant that published videotapes of

"signing" apes are as edited as the videos of Terry Schiavo?

Broadly speaking, I'm not particularly interested to the publisher, Karl or
Groucho Marx, I love anonymous communications centered on the content.
Anyway, questions related  to ASL and animals belong to prehistory of
research: sign-language used by deafs presupposes human language,

It _is_ human language. Apes can't do it. Period.

so it is a
language to the power of two.
To study the capacities of symbolic communication in animals we need to
examinate symbols, or signs, who precede developmentally those used by
humans.

I.e,, are not language.
.

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