"Wollin, Edith" wrote:
>
> Bob, since we share 98.2 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees (they are our
> closest living relatives), why is it totally preposterous to assume that
> they would acquire a language of communication very much as we do?

The essential question is whether what chimps do is language.  I have
seen absolutely no evidence that chimps have anything like syntax of any
natural human language.  I looked up information about Washoe on the
web. Washoe has 250 signs after more than a decade being around humans.
This is impressive, for a chimp.

How soon do little kids get to 250 words?  I know of absolutely no
evidence that chimps get morphology, notwithstanding Dr. Doolittle or
Babe (I loved the mice singing "je ne regrette rien."  They were better
than Piaf, but...) Little kids master issues of agreement very early
on.  Several years ago I was in Germany.  My four year old
German-speaking niece NEVER made a single error of gender agreement in
German.  She even used the German subjunctive correctly in reported
speech!!  What is the chimp equivalent?

You may be right that with humans and chimps being so close that chimps
have language-like abilities.  They clearly can make relationships
between meaning and an abstract form.  This is a necessary feature of
language, but it is not language tout court (as we say in English).

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University