The Chimp who Could Communicate (trailer)

Wisdom Quarterly
"Project Nim" NOW PLAYING

Can other primates communicate? Of course they can. As humans we want human-style communication and ignore how widespread and diverse communication is all around us -- between plants, between species, between sentient beings and inanimate objects, between dimensions, between modalities, between minds and hearts...

Is language uniquely human? Not at all. We originally got ours from "above" (space) and have developed and debased it into innumerable tongues ever since. (Sadly, they are being lost at an alarming rate!)

This world is not for humans alone; there are classes of unseen beings of a higher order here. There are also other very visible ones, who are less morally developed (as a general rule, not in every specific instance). And they can learn Sign Language and other ways of communicating.

A new documentary features Nim Chimpsky [a chimpanzee whose name mocks Noam Chomsky, who said it teaching it language could not be done because that was unique to humans] and what he was able to accomplish.

• Movie Review: "Project Nim: Monkeying Around With a Chimp" (LISTEN: "Fresh Air")
  

Bonobos are so genetically similar to us that it is not accurate to regard humans as a separate class. It may be that we are but another genetically-altered hominid or great ape group. However, attached and identifying with our bodies, we find it hard to bear this scientific possibility (mymodernmet.com).

A human-primate hybrid or a hoax? (snopes.com)

The Chimp That Learned Sign Language

(NPR, 2008) Back in the 1970s, a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky took part in a Columbia University research study called "Project Nim."

• LISTEN

Project Nim was led by Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia who was attempting to find out if a chimpanzee could learn to communicate using American Sign Language.

"Everyone knows that words are learned one at a time," but something happens when children begin to combine words and create true language, Terrace says. The question, he says, was, "Could Nim do this?" More

Other Primates Communicate, Too
"Koko the Talking Gorilla" (documentary)

(Tehinfidel) This documentary about Koko the talking gorilla is from 1978. It shows Koko and Washo working with Dr. Francine "Penny" Patterson using sign language and understanding the subtleties previously thought unique to humans.

• Betrayed by Science: the story of Nim Chimpsky
• VIDEO: Oliver the "Humanzee" (human-chimp)
• The Gorilla Foundation
• The Jane Goodall Institute
• The Death of Language (BBC)
• Bonobo Sex & Society: Challenging male supremacy
• Nim Chimpsky: The chimp who would be human
• World loses another language every two weeks
• Transhuman/Posthuman -- redefining evolution