Can Chimpanzees Talk?

1. Can chimp learn human
language?

2. What is
Chimps
 Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives,
sharing more than 98 percent of our genetic
blueprint. Humans and chimps are also
thought to share a common ancestor who
lived some four to eight million years ago

4. Types of
Chimps
 Common chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes (West and
Central Africa)
 Bonobo, Pan paniscus (forests of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo)

5. Background
 Chimpanzees live in social communities of
several dozen animals, and can habituate
themselves to African rain forests,
woodlands, and grasslands.

6.  Although they normally walk on all fours (knuckle-walking),
chimpanzees can stand and walk upright.
By swinging from branch to branch they can also
move quite efficiently in the trees, where they do
most of their eating. Chimpanzees usually sleep in
the trees as well, employing nests of leaves.
 Source;
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/ma
mmals/chimpanzee/

7. What is
language?
 Language is the most important aspect in the
life of all beings.

8. What is
language?
We use language to express inner thoughts
and emotions, make sense of complex and
abstract thought, to learn to communicate
with others, to fulfill our wants and needs, as
well as to establish rules and maintain our
culture.

9. What is
language?
 Language can be defined as verbal, physical,
biologically innate, and a basic form of
communication.

10. What is
language?
 Behaviourists often define language as a learned
behaviour involving a stimulus and a
response.(Ormrod,1995)
 Often times they will refer to language as verbal
behaviour, which is language that includes gestures
and body movements as well as spoken word. (
Pierce,& Eplin,1999)

11. What is
language?
When we define language we have to be
careful not to exclude symbols, gestures,or
motions. This is because if we exclude these
from our definition, we will be denying the
language of the deaf community.

12. What is
language?
 All human languages share basic
characteristics, some of which are
organizational rules and infinite generativity.
 Infinite Generativity is the ability to produce
an infinite number of sentences using a
limited set of rules and words. ( Santrock,&
Mitterer,2001)

13. What is
language?
 Most or all non-human species can exchange
information, but none of them are known to have a
system of communication with a complexity that in
any way is comparable to language. Primarily, they
communicate with non-linguistic means resembling
our smiling, laughing, yelling, clenching of fists, and
raising of eye brows.

14. What is
language?
 Chimpanzees, gorillas, and oranutangs can
exchange different kinds of information by
emitting different kinds of shrieks,
composing their faces in numerous ways, and
moving their hands or arms in different
gestures, but they do not have words and
sentences.

15. What is
language?
 Source
 http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/EXFAC03-
AAS/h05/larestoff/linguistics/Chapter%201.(H05).pdf

16. Chimpanzee
Communication
 A female chimpanzee named Washoe kicked
off man's earnest quest to teach chimps
human language. She was born in Africa in
1965 and eventually taken to Washoe
County, Nev. (her namesake); that's where
Washoe became the subject of cognitive
research performed by Allen and Beatrix
Gardener

17. Washoe

18. Washoe
 . The chimp wowed the world when she
successfully learned American Sign
Language, which had never happened before
with a nonhuman primate. Washoe then
passed her skills on to her adopted son
Loulis, and by the time she died in 2007,
Washoe had mastered around 130 signs
 [source: Carey]
 http://www.friendsofwashoe.org/meet/washoe.html

19. Nim
 In 1973, Columbia University psychologist
Herbert Terrace wanted to see what
happened with a chimp's language if it were
raised as a human [source: Adler].
 Nim Chimpsky -- named in snide homage for
Noam Chomsky -- moved in with a family in
New York City and was taught American Sign
Language.

20. Nim
Photograph: Harry Benson

21. Nim
 Although Nim memorized 150 signs,
researchers discovered his proficiency sprang
from imitation of his teacher rather than
unprompted communication [source: Adler].
Like Washoe, Nim hadn't cracked the code on
spontaneous, humanlike communication.

22. Can chimp
learn
language?
Nevertheless, there are some interesting
things going on in the apes' brains when
signing or communicating with their innate
gestures and vocalizations.

23. Can chimp
learn
language?
 PET scans conducted during a study for the Yerkes
National Primate Research Center at Emory
University found that
chimpanzee communication activated the
same regions of the brain as human language,
particularly Broca's area and Wernicke's area
 [source: Moskowitz].

24. Can
Chimpanzees
Talk?
 1. Chimpanzee shares 98.4% of the human
genetic code, which is more comparing to
other animals.

25. Human
vs
Chimp
chromosomes

26. Can
Chimpanzees
Talk?
 2. Chimpanzee can be trained to use
sign language
 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUwOvF7TqgA
 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3b0t9JfFhI
 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55put3MLZcw
 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxInjW1CMbk

27. Can
Chimpanzees
Talk?
 3. They can learn to order their symbols to
get what they want, but they can’t master
the syntax.

28. For example:
 Water bird.
 “Give Washoe” or “Me orange

29. Can
Chimpanzees
Talk?
 4. The chimpanzee’s vocal cords are located
higher in their throats and cannot be
controlled as well as human vocal cords.

31. Conclusion:
 Chimpanzees are not capable of human
language.

32.  Thank you HUMAN for your attentions