The classic example which is often used to suggest that animals might be able to demonstrate a human-like use of language is apes. The great eighteenth-century diarist Samuel Pepys once wrote about: “a great baboone, but so like a man in most things, that … yet I cannot believe but that it is a monster got of a man and she-baboone. I do believe it already understands much English; and am of the mind it might be taught to speak or make signs.”
Actually, many people have tried to teach apes, gorillas and chimpanzees to talk. The results have been universally disappointing. Teaching apes sign language has been slightly more successful, but has never come close to achieving the conversational nature of the ways in which human's use language. The best a chimpanzee has managed is a simple set of commands and instructions: ‘I want banana’, ‘put it in the box’ etc..
There is no evidence to suggest that apes are able to recognise the contexts of language, and the complexities of grammatical structures which underpin it.
There is no evidence to suggest that apes are able to use language in descriptive terms. They might say ‘want banana’, but are unlikely to say ‘that was delicious, and so much nicer than the one I had yesterday’.
There is no evidence to suggest that apes are able to use language in the contexts of displacement. They might be able to point at something and say ‘dog’, but they are unlikely to say ‘that was a nice dog I saw earlier in the park’. Their use of language is limited to the immediate context – the here and now.
Displacement