Can Other Animals Talk?

Nim Chimpsky with trainer Stephanie LaFargeExperiments in the 1970s attempted to teach chimps and gorillas to speak using sign language or computers.

People still debate the meaning of the results.

Some animals can be trained to imitate human language.  However, the process by which they learn language is fundamentally different than humans and the language they learn is extremely simple.

Language is a fundamental part of our humanity. Human-like language does not seem fundmental to any other creature.

Next: How humans learn speech

The photo shows Nim Chimpsky (1973-2000), a chimpanzee who was raised as a human and was trained in ASL with his trainer, Stephanie LaFarge. LaFarge was a student of Herbert Terrace who was the principal investigator for the experiment. Nim's story was tragic. There is a full length movie about it called Project Nim. You can see the movie here.