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Re: language learning.

Posted By: SiliconDream =PN= (as3-2-142.HIP.Berkeley.EDU)
Date: 1/30/2001 at 1:30 p.m.

In Response To: language learning. (griefmop)

: it is not chance that apes have not developed a language.
: or perhaps i should say, it is chance, since humans
: evolved from apes and humans have language. the point
: is that there are physical brain differences between
: humans and apes that explain differences in language
: ability.
: for evolutionary reasons, human brains have evolved to
: have a structure whereby we are not just capable of
: learning language, but in some important sense THIRSTY
: for it. what's amazing about human language is not
: that it is teachable to young human beings, but that
: young human beings can't AVOID learning it. symbols
: have to be taught to apes through stimulus and
: response (and perhaps other means), but just try to
: keep a human child from learning the language spoken
: around it!

It can be done--but you have to remove the external and physical advantages which a human child has over an ape. Human children have dozens of older humans nearby, constantly talking around them, talking to them. Ape subjects generally have one or two researchers who come in and try to teach them language for a set period each day; other human contacts are fleeting and distant Human children also (naturally) have the physical tools to master the languages around them; apes don't have the proper mouths or throats to do so. The languages they seem best equipped to learn so far are based on hand signs; but these are not commonly used among the bulk of humanity.

So knock a human child down to a lab ape's level--make him a neglected, isolated, congenitally mute orphan to whom virtually no one speaks directly save for his pair of ASL-trained social workers--and see how well he does at languages. That's the classic recipe for developmental disability.

Conversely, raise an ape among a large, friendly group of people--or other apes--trained in the use of a language with which the ape is physically compatible, and how might he do? Well, we don't know yet, of course. We might get a chance to find out on Maui soon, though.

I agree that humans are probably naturally better at communication than other apes, certainly, but I think the gap is potentially pretty narrow.

--SiliconDream

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