Gorillas & Chimpanzees

by R. L. Garner

It was never any part of my purpose to teach a monkey to talk, but after I became familiar with the qualities and range of the voice of Moses, I determined to see if he might not be taught to speak a few simple words of human speech. To effect this in the easiest way and shortest time, I carefully observed the movements of his lips and vocal organs in order to select such words for him to try as were best adapted to his ability.

I selected the word mamma, which may almost be considered a universal word of human speech; the French word feu, fire; the German word wie, howl, and the native Nkami word nkgwe, mother. Every day I took him on my lap and tried to induce him to say one or more of these words. For a long time he made no effort to learn them, but after some weeks of persistent labour and a bribe of corned beef, he began to see dimly what I wanted him to do. The native word quoted is very similar to one of the sounds of his own speech, which means "good" or "satisfaction." The vowel element differs in them, and he was not able in the time he was under tuition to change them, but he distinguished them from other words.

In his attempt to say mamma he only worked his lips without making any sound, although he really tried to do so, and I believe that in the course of time he would have succeeded. He observed the movement of my lips, and tried to imitate them, but seemed to think that the lips alone produced the sound.

With feu he succeeded fairly well, except that the consonant element as he uttered it resembled "v" more than "f," so that the sound was more like vu making the u short as in "nut." It was quite as perfect as most people of other tongues ever learn to speak the same word in French, and if it had been uttered in a sentence, any one knowing that language would recognise it as meaning fire.

In his efforts to pronounce wie he always gave the vowel element like German "u" with the umlaut, but the "w" element was more like the English than the German sound of that letter.

Taking into consideration the fact that he was only a little more than a year old, and was in training less than three months, his progress was all that could have been desired, and vastly more than had been hoped for. Had he lived until this time, it is my belief that he would have mastered these and other words of human speech to the satisfaction of the most exacting linguist. If he had only learned one word in a whole lifetime, he would have shown at least that the race is capable of being improved and elevated in some degree.

Another experiment that I tried with him was one that I had used before in testing the ability of a monkey to distinguish forms. I cut a round hole in one end of a board and a square hole in the other, and made a block to fit into each one of them. The blocks were then given to him to see if he could fit them into the proper holes. After being shown a few times how to do this, he fitted them in without difficulty; but when he was not rewarded for the task by receiving a morsel of corned beef or a sardine, he did not care to work for the fun alone.

In colours he had but little choice, unless it was something to eat, but he could distinguish them with ease if the shades were pronounced.

I had no means of testing his taste for music or sense of musical sounds.

I must here take occasion to mention one incident in the life of Moses that never perhaps occurred before in the life of any other chimpanzee, and while it may not be of scientific value, it is at least amusing.