Kanzi, evolution, and language

Abstract

What an irony it is, that the supposed attempt to bring homo sapiens down a few notches in the natural order has taken the form of us humans hectoring another species into emulating our instinctive form of communication, or some artificial form we have invented, as if that were the measure of biological worth. The chimpanzee’s resistance is no shame on them; a human would surely do no better if trained to hoot and shriek like a chimp, a symmetrical project that makes about as much scientific sense. (Pinker 1994, p. 351) What is the significance of attempting to get members of other species to learn human languages or their variants? Such studies are often considered to be of more dubious value than studies of natural communication in a species in its own environment. There is a big difference between comparing such natural forms of communication to human language, and comparing extremely unnatural forms, such as bonobos who have learned an English based form of artificial symbolic representation. I will argue today that even the most unnatural experiments can be of vital use in reasoning about the origins of human language. My argument rests on two points, first, the fundamental importance and the structure of comparative studies, and second, the crucial role of development in understanding claims about language capacities. These days, more and more people buy the idea that comparative studies are useful, even including Chomsky, in a recent paper he coauthored with Hauser et al. (2002). But an understanding of capacities is also essential, as I shall argue. Claims of human uniqueness have been ubiquitous in discussions of the evolution of language. One of the most vocal recent advocates of this view is Steven Pinker. Pinker argues that human language capacity should be understood as a ‘module’ that evolved in the hominid line – that is, it is uniquely human. Included in this module are capacities to produce and consume language, which includes the ability to hear and parse syntax, as well as the syntactical and semantic abilities necessary for producing sentences. (1994, p. 373) This whole suite of behaviors is called the language instinct, which is modular in its structure.