In your original statement, you did not seem to be arguing about whether or
not what the chimps do is language--it was a question of how they learned
what they know and whether or not that can be compared to how humans learn.

In The Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond has some interesting stuff on
"language" learning in animals; he suggests that there must be connections
in the way we all learn communication and shows what those ways are. He also
looks at the question of whether what they do is language and takes a very
sensible approach in my opinion.
Edith

> ----------
> From:         Bob Yates[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> Sent:         Sunday, January 09, 2000 10:17 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Teaching grammar (the ESL angle)
>
> "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
>