Subject: Crows, Parrots, Bonobos, Cats and Human Speech
Date: Sep 4 18:17:09 1999
From: MBlanchrd at aol.com - MBlanchrd at aol.com


In a message dated 09/04/1999 4:03:58 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
lgaebe at email.msn.com writes:

<< ntelligence a factor?
Do Vocal chords determine speech ability?
Shape of tongue? (Great apes have human looking tongues and can make all
sorts of goofy faces using their tongues....Cats also have very flexible
tongues)
>>

If you take a human being as an infant and never say a word to it, the child
will never really develop human speech. The human brain is hard wired for
speech, but if the software isn't installed, you get nothing but gibberish.
The best example of this is that poor, unfortunate girl in Chicago, was it?
who's parents decided she was possessed by the devil and kept her chained up
in the basement. She was treated like that for 14 years, I think. She was
finally liberated by the police and CPS at the age of 15 and couldn't say
more than "momma" . Needless to say the poor girl is probably permanently
esconced in a mental ward..not because she's "mentally retarded"..but she
is..she was never raised as a human being so has none of the social
abilities,the language, etc. I'm quite sure she's not even potty trained.
What terrible thing.....

By the way, "momma" is the easiest word a human can say, as it's all hums and
a simple opening and closing of the lips.

You must also take into account our anatomy..though we are 99% chimpanzee,
that 1% is extremely important. (please, no flames and please no arguments
about evolution vs creationism...I'm tired of it.)
Our lungs and trachea have as much a role to play in speech as is our vocal
cords. The larynx in a human being, at birth, is up in our throat like other
animals. That's why it's possible for human infants to breath and nurse at
the same time. At about ten months of age the larynx drops back into the
throat, allowing the development of actual speech beyond babbling. Which, by
the way, a baby does instinctively..even deaf babies babble, and babbling is
basically a child doing what all humans do...practising to learn how to talk.
(It's extremely important to talk to babies. While the experts dither and say
they don't understand what you are saying, it's still the only way a baby can
hear human speech and learn how to speak.)
No other animal has the larynx shift position like ours does.

Then you must realize that the parrots and corvines are both highly social as
well as highly intelligent. What they are doing in many cases is mimicking,
though Alex the African Grey uses speech intelligently, and, I'm certain,
crows can too.
Though I admit cats have flexible tongues, it's no more flexible than, say, a
giraffe, or an anteater, both species which use their tongue to a far higher
degree than a cat. While I'm a cat fan of the first water, I'd think it's
stretching it pretty far to imagine that they can learn and use human speech.
My cats have always been adept at teaching ME cat language..I never mistake
when one's hungry!!

Several years ago, back in the fifties, someone tried to teach a chimp to
speak. After years and years of tormenting the poor chimp, the best she could
produce was "momma" "cup" and "up"..all easy words to speak. When..oh dear, I
can't remember their names..when "they" decided to teach Washoe ( a
chimp)ASL (American SIgn Language) they discovered that not only can chimps
use it intelligently, they also teach it to their young. There's films of
Washoe signing to her children, and her children learning to sign from her.

An excellent book on human language is "The Language Instinct" by Stephen
Pinker. Fascinating.

Hope this clears things up for you.
Michelle Blanchard
Littlerock, WA
MBlanchrd at aol.com