Animal Bodies, Human Minds: Ape, Dolphin, and Parrot Language Skills (Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects)

Several books chronicle attempts, most of them during the last 40 years, to teach animals to communicate with people in a human-designed language. These books have typically treated only one or two species, or even one or a few research projects. We have provided a more encompassing view of this field. We also want to reinforce what other authors, for example Jane Goodall, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Penny Patterson, Birute Galdikas, and Roger and Deborah Fouts, so passionately convey about our responsibility for our closest animal kin. This book surveys what was known, or believed about animal language throughout history and prehistory, and summarizes current knowledge and the controversy around it. The authors identify and attempt to settle most of the problems in interpreting the animal behaviours that have been observed in studies of animal language ability. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii A Chronology of Events in Animal Language Research....Pages 1-7 An Overview of Animal Language....Pages 9-24 Language Research with Nonhuman Animals: Methods and Problems....Pages 25-44 Early Reports about Language in Animals....Pages 45-67 Washoe, the First Signing Chimpanzee....Pages 69-85 Signs in Oklahoma and Ellensburg....Pages 87-98 Koko Fine Sign Gorilla....Pages 99-111 Chimpanzees can Write with Plastic Symbols....Pages 113-123 Lana Learns Lexigrams....Pages 125-150 A Cultural Approach to Language Learning....Pages 151-187 Chantek the Beautiful....Pages 189-200 Ai Project: A Retrospective of 25 Years Research on Chimpanzee Intelligence....Pages 201-211 Language Studies with Bottlenosed Dolphins....Pages 213-235 Alex: One Smart Parrot....Pages 237-253 Evaluations of the Ape Language Research....Pages 255-267 Where do We Stand and Where Are We Going?....Pages 269-279 Back Matter....Pages 281-310