Talk:Great ape language

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"Great apes that demonstrate communication"

The Great ape article (which redirects to Hominidae) tells us that humans are Great Apes. Therefore, this list should include a link to Human. --Dnavarro (talk) 17:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Language of opening paragraph

I'm trying to achieve some neutrality in the opening paragraph, specifically the sentences stating:

"Research into great ape language has shown that apes can communicate in a primitive way. Gorillas and chimpanzees have been taught sign language and can communicate with tokens and lexigrams (keyboards with symbols on them)."

The above is biased because it strongly assumes that great apes positively are communicating, although elsewhere in the article it is admitted that notable scientists dispute that this is the case. The facts can be conveyed without the POV, if we state what is known... that the apes have learned these behaviors, and research suggests that they are using these behaviors to communicate. This leaves it open to both sides. The Hokkaido Crow 01:04, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, apes have not been "taught sign language." I'm getting this from Stephen Pinker's The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works mostly: the "sign language" that chimps/apes/etc. learned was a set of gestures linked to actions and objects. A typical utterance was "Me banana you banana me you give." See [1] and [2]. In contrast, real sign languages are not Me-Tarzan-You-Jane gesture systems but have the full grammatical complexity of spoken speech. Pinker discounts researchers' claims of the apes' achievements, citing suspicious concealment of data, and concludes that there's no clear evidence that the apes "get" the difference between "me tickle" and "tickle me." The apes seem to be able to learn some aspects of language, as parrots and dolphins have, but are missing the key concept of grammar. So, it's misleading to say that they know "sign language." I'll propose a slight change to reflect this. --Kris Schnee 21:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC) (former assistant of Irene Pepperberg)

Changed a line in the introduction that stated "they cannot use syntax to combine these symbols". This is highly disputed. Washoe the Chimp was fully capable of forming pivot sentences and Koko the gorilla invented new words by combining other ones. For example, she originally called watermellon "Fruit Drink" but corrected herself to say "Drink Fruit". This is argued to reflect a basic understanding of syntax. As I cannot find a specific article to cite this information, I have merely changed the line to read "it remains disputed." Please, do not write definitive statements unless you can find specific sources to verify them. 67.173.252.161 (talk) 20:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Problems

• Confusion between natural communiction and modeling of human language in animals
• opening sentence with "lots of"
• entire article largely redundant with animal language, which is another article which also needs significant workSantaduck 22:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

One more thing: surely we should refer to each individual animal as "it", not as "he" or "she"? Manormadman (talk) 00:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Manormadman

If you look at other species pages, you will see that animals are generally referred to as "it". Jack (talk) 04:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Multiple articles on this topic

This article is one of at least 16 articles on Wikipedia primarily about the fascinating but controversial subject of Great ape language. These articles have been created independently and contain much interesting but uncoordinated information, varying levels of NPOV, and differences in categorization, stubbing, and references. Those of us working on them should explore better coordinating our efforts so as to share the best we have created and avoid unnecessary duplication. I have somewhat arbitrarily put the list of 16 articles here and short remarks on the talk pages of the others. I would encourage us to informally coordinate efforts here. Martinp 17:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

• Koko (gorilla)
• Animal language
• Washoe (chimpanzee)
• Nim Chimpsky
• Primates and American Sign Language
• Chantek
• Great ape language
• Kanzi
• Panzee_and_Panbanisha
• Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute
• Loulis

(note I ran out of time putting notes on this on talk pages after I got here; will hopefully return when I have time or anyone else go ahead) Martinp 02:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Lana (chimpanzee)
• Francine Patterson
• Sarah (chimpanzee)
• David Premack
• Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
• Herbert S. Terrace

Coordination approach

Do we need a Wikiproject or shall we do this just informally? Martinp 17:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I think doing it informally for now would be good. There really aren't enough contributors or articles to warrant a WikiProject as of yet. - FrancisTyers 18:02, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Things to be done

(My take - changes welcome)

• Inventory the above articles on NPOV and tag as POV/controversial if appropriate (I'm not sure whether the "npov" tag or "controversial" is better, but let's choose one. I'd avoid "disputed", since I think the question is more one of controversy than factual dispute) Many of the above pages are POV in presupposing language use has occurred. One at least (the ASL article) is POV the other way. On some (e.g. Koko) a bona fide attempt has been made to be POV.
• Align wikilinks between these articles - most articles point to a random selection of the others; should consider what makes sense for each one
• Extract the good elements of the discussion of "Is this language use?" in several articles, centralize it somewhere (maybe here in Great Ape Language, there's a good start), and hammer out an informative NPOV version that describes the claims and the controversy pertaining to all the apes in question. Specific places where I've noticed good content (not exhaustive) are Great ape language (this article) and (to slightly beat my own drum) at Koko (gorilla). There is also good discussion on a number of talk pages, such as Talk:Kanzi (now beating FrancisTyers' drum).
• Adjust the non-NPOV articles to be NPOV (this is a framing, not a content question) and refer to the centralized discussion on ape language for details of the controversy (except elements specific to any one specific ape, e.g. signing instruction by Washoe to Loulis
• Try to find some pictures we can use within Wikipedia's licensing requirements
• Add elements about the question of what has happened to these apes after the "experiments" concluded -- see popular books by Eugene Linden, maybe there is more

-- Martinp 02:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

See also: Nyota (pygmy chimp), and animal language acquisition. I wonder if these efforts can be extended to the pages on animal language (or even animal communication) in general. Here are some non-ape animals involved in language experiments:

• N'kisi (parrot)
• Alex (parrot)
• Rico (Border Collie)
• Clever Hans
• Akeakamai

ntennis 03:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

"capable of using human modes of communication"

Given that "human modes of communication" include everything from meaningful vocalization, sophisticated syntax, alphabetic writing systems, and internet chat, isn't the lead sentence here a little much? It seems to set an optimistic POV tone from the very start. Marskell 16:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Indonesian etc.

Just curious whether anyone has attempted to teach apes or chimpanzees languages such as Indonesian, that have a much simpler grammatical structure than English. I could see there being a lot of difficulties in understanding irregular past tense verbs, hotter vs. more beautiful (not beautifuler), that sort of thing. This isn't just a point for discussion - I would be interested in seeing this information added to the article if it exists. Mithridates 16:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I am told that Chinese language is also much simpler than English.69.215.113.206 13:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Sign languages, while having a complex spatial grammar, have a relatively simple grammar when compared to English in the traditional sense. There is very little tense, and what tense there is, it's regularly expressed by adverbs and not tense, superlatives are all regularized with a secondary sign (in ASL).

The notion of an "easier grammar" or "simpler grammar" is entirely subjective from a linguistic framework. It depends on the grammar of the native language of the learner, and in the case of children without a native language, the reesults are always the same... every language is simple for them to learn.

Basically, we've given them a language where to say "I'm hungry" you just sign "ME HUNGRY" and they can't even get that consistently correct. The documented use of Nim Chimpsky gave us quotes ranging the entire range of grammatical orders: "YOU TICKLE ME", "YOU ME TICKLE", "ME YOU TICKLE", "ME TICKLE YOU", "TICKLE ME YOU", "TICKLE YOU ME". It doesn't matter how simple of a grammar we have given Apes, they have been unable to pick up any grammatically significant usage at all. --Puellanivis 19:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

As Puellanivis hinted, it is very tricky to tell when one grammar is simpler than another. Usually it lies with the individual speaker. One speaker may routinely use intricate grammatical rules in a language, which other speakers of the same language do not apply or are even aware of. The written grammatical rules you read when you learn a foreign language are always a small (but vital) subset of all the actual rules.

I have no references for this as it is original research, or, to use another expression, own experience. Mlewan 20:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Source request

This sentence — "The average college-educated English speaker has a vocabulary of greater than 100,000 words, which means well-educated humans learn roughly 14 words per day between ages 2 and 22, compared to the average chimpanzee vocabulary learning rate of roughly 0.1 words per day." — is sourced to Neuroscience, Dale Purves (ed), p. 591. It sounds like a remarkably stupid point to make, so I'm wondering whether it really is in the source. Can whoever added it quote what the source says, please? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't know about the source, but it doesn't seem particularly stupid. It's just showing that apes aren't much good at learning vocab. Cadr 10:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Today someone anonymously deleted the above-quoted sentence. It is my intention to improve it and put it back. In particular, the quotation marks above are mislocated, repair of which will be reflected in my new edit. The deleted sentence is 1) relevant, 2) important to the topic at hand, and 3) properly cited. I see absolutely no reason why it needed to be deleted.

Badly Bradley 21:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the sentence is relevant, important and properly cited. However, it is still stupid. How do you count words? Is "tablecloth" one word or two? Is "the house" in English two words, while the Danish translation "huset" is just one? Is "I speak" in English two words, while the Italian translation "parlo" is just one? If it is just one, is then "parlo" and "parli" two words, or is it still one word, which correspond to three words in English: "I, you, speak"?

And how do you count how many words a person knows? I spent four hours yesterday trying to remember a particular word, which I would have recognised within a nano-second, if someone had spoken it. I would definitely have failed that question on a test, but can one say I do not know it? And what about all those words we think we know - at least almost? Or the words we know with multiple meanings? Do they constitute just one word? If a non-native English speaker knows that "bird" is slang for "girl", but he does not know that it also is a feathered animal, can we say that he "knows" the word?

Frankly, I do not know how to handle this in the article. The information that humans learn a larger number of "words" than animals is relevant and important. However, giving absolute numbers, like it currently does, looks naive. Mlewan (talk) 10:41, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

"This rate is not comparable to the average college-educated English-speaking human who learns roughly 14 words per day between ages 2 and 22.". How many 2 year old college-educated english speakers are there? Does a future education change the rate at which a human learns in the past? This is nonsensical.. I think we need more than one scholarly opinion here and there seems to be a trend in these ape-language articles of decidedly POV cherry picking of research in order to promote or advertise a more comfortable outcome. Are we aiming for honesty here or are we proselytising? It either needs to be balanced, or removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.97.215.176 (talk) 02:51, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, the reference is poorly formed (no chapter, missing the et al for the other authors) and for the reasons outlined above is suspect. Given that the reference is, allegedly, from the second edition and the book which is ostensibly about the nervous system which is now in the fourth edition, according to amazon, I think this needs to be corroborated. I wont remove it as I will assume good faith, but I do suspect the worst here. I think if this goes unchecked it should be removed by the next person to agree with me after a reasonable length of time. Additionally, if it has been dishonestly attributed the person who did so should be ashamed of themselves.

vocal cords

It says in the article that "non-human primates lack vocal cords."

This is not entirely accurate. A careful Google search will reveal that great apes actually do have vocal cords, but they are located a bit higher, and this is why they can't control them very well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.123.37.95 (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hand Morphology and ASL

anyone got a source for the bit in the criticism section on native ASL speakers having problems with Washoe's use of sign language? It's just, the way it's written now makes it sound like a large part of the ASL speaker's problems had to do with Washoe's *articulation* of the signs, quite apart from the also-mentioned issues with the larger syntactic structure of the utterance. Thing is, chimpanzee hand morphology differs in significant ways from humans', and I'm wondering if that could have had any effect on Washoe's sign-formation, and if so if this effect was accounted for. --68.104.215.19 (talk) 21:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

On the "ASL" experiments, there was a real phenomenon that people who actually "speak" real ASL and use it on a daily basis with other people were consistently much more critical of the abilities of the apes to reasonably approximate ASL than observers who don't actually use ASL themselves were. AnonMoos (talk) 22:23, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Limitations might be outdated

Just wanted to note in case someone can check this out - much of the section deals with apes never asking questions, it seems, however, to contradict article on Kanzi, in which there is a referenced claim that "Savage-Rumbaugh did not realize Kanzi could sign until he signed "You, Gorilla, Question" to anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes, who had previously worked closely with gorillas". Seems this section is from article on 2006 book (which has much wider scope) and supposing additional references are where the authors of the book got it from, they are from 1980s and predate this claim, even supposing it is anecdotal and Kanzi's researchers have no scientific proof of this, it still is possible that stuff has happened over last 20+ years 46.109.170.121 (talk) 03:40, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Last sentence in Criticisms might need changing if a lack of source continues

"...ought to be[citation needed] ensuring that the main contact persons are all native speakers of the sign language,[citation needed] as it is otherwise analogous"

"Ought to be" implies a certainty about the theory that needs to be cited if it is indeed irrefutable.

It's also a run-on sentence and the metaphor is poorly worded.

Missing criticisms

All the communications system chosen for ape-human communications experiments lack the duality of patterning basic to human spoken languages and the multiple simultaneous componentiality common to human sign languages, which right away calls into question the word "language" in "Great ape language". The communications of apes also lack any rules of syntax in the human sense -- some of them can eventually kind of pragmatically learn to associate that the name of the doer of an action comes before the name of the action and that the name thing or person affected by an action comes after the name of the action (i.e. subject-verb-object for concrete observable items and actions, each referred to with a single sign or symbol only), but that's about it. There are none of the hierarchical constituents and recursion seen in human language. Extended ape utterances are word salad, in which the item that they want, the action that they want done to it, and the name of the person they want to do said action are jumbled together repetitiously but without any particular structure. Apes also don't really learn to take turns in a conversation, and the great majority of their spontaneous communication attempts are because they want something... AnonMoos (talk) 22:45, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Current state of research and recent rewrite

Seems like earlier this year the article was somewhat rewritten to cast more doubt on earlier foundational research. I'm not sure that was merited. Anyone have thoughts? Andre🚐 23:53, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I also think this piece is pretty disorganized and needs some updating. I'll take a stab at it. Monkeywire (talk) 16:00, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to followup, here is a rough idea of what I'm thinking:

• Add new section -- background or historical overview -- starting with Richard Garner’s work and moving up through the sign-language/lexigram/token studies.
• The sections on individual apes need to be significantly cut back, as these individuals already have their own entries and much of the detail here isn’t particularly helpful for the big picture.
• The key criticisms over the sign language studies need to be more up-to-date and of a summative nature.
• Add section on contemporary intraspecies communications research

Monkeywire (talk) 15:24, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Sounds great! When you're done can you do transgenerational trauma next? Andre🚐 18:05, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

That may come up when we get to efforts to have Washoe raise infants, which she was largely unable to do. Most of this language work was not conducted transgerationally, though.

Or were you recommending that I look at the transgenerational trauma page? Unfortunately,I've no expertise in that issue. Plus, a lot of these connected ape/language pages need work... Monkeywire (talk) 19:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's just another science article that needs proper attention from an expert. But plenty to do with the primate language studies, and when you finish that, there are some articles about birds and elephants and dolphins... Andre🚐 19:10, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, adding it to my TO DO list! Monkeywire (talk) 19:18, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Citations question

As I rewrite this entry, I often need to source different pages from a given book. I assume that the best way to go about this is to add the commonly cited books to the References and then add citations with just the authors name, year, and page number. See, for example, footnotes 20 and 21.

I had previously done citations by continually relisting the same book with different page numbers, but ultimately that's going to add a ton of bulk to this entry. I assume I should go back and redo those I did earlier (for ex. notes 13 and 18).

Just posting here to make sure I'm on the right track. Monkeywire (talk) 18:42, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:ECREE in here

@Monkeywire, you’ve changed a lot of the language, especially around Koko, in a way that makes it seem like the rejection by linguists may be unique and there may be acceptance elsewhere. There’s no serious, credible linguistic source I’m aware of that makes the claim that other apes have been demonstrated to have linguistic ability and it’s not just linguists who reject the claim. While there are certainly very wishful-thinking inclined primatologists, they’re typically not experts on language and there’s a reason the field of linguistics is quite uniform on this. We don’t need to hedge a WP:FRINGE stance considering the uniformity of consensus. A failure by some primatologists to understand what language fundamentally is doesn’t change the results of these studies.

There’s an ocean of difference between primate and animal communication, including inter species communication, and what this article is about. WP:ECREE applies around any softening of the language, I feel. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 22:04, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I changed "researchers" to "linguists" because that is what the source you provided showed. The use of "researchers" in conjunction with "never" in that sentence would make the statement false, as it would have to include those pesky "wishful-thinking inclined primatologists."

I'm not a linguist and I bet you could say that the communication skills apes that have shown do not clear the bar of what experts consider language. By all means, find other sources and reword! But imho you need to be more careful about over-reaching and failing to substantiate your claims. Monkeywire (talk) 22:39, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

The question of what languages is and who uses it is one of linguistics, that’s the pertinent field for the claims. Researchers in other fields who accept Great Ape Language as language are speaking outside their expertise, hence WP:ECREE. We could use “qualified researchers”? But there’s a sourcing problem in citing primatologists on a linguistics and neuroscience issue. That said, I’m going to temporarily change it back while I dig through WP:RS/AC discussions to find out if we need to concern ourselves with the opinion of experts in unrelated fields who may lack qualifications when determining academic consensus. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv the idea that this centres around a definition of what language is presumes that primatologists are qualified to make that distinction, which considering the overwhelming consensus in linguistics creates WP:PARITY problems. The source discussed language as uniquely human. The revert you just did creates a WP:FALSEBALANCE problem and the article is worse for it.

no evidence of linguistic ability ever demonstrated in these studies.

Is an accurate summary of the perspectives of subject matter experts on these experiments, and that statement should stand. Maybe with a caveat differentiating linguistic ability from the concept of communication. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:14, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

You would need an explicit source making that claim. Andre🚐 17:35, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

There was one, removed in the revert.

https://royalsociety.org/news/2013/language-unique-humans/ Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:44, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

No, that is one study. You need a review that states there is an expert consensus. Andre🚐 17:49, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's simply an unacceptable source on this, and I thought my e.s. was clear enough. It's a summary of one paper of a theoretical model. There are tons of vast-scoping reviews on the issue of animal language.

If you're going strictly by empirical evidence (which would btw exclude an a priori model), the definition of "language" and "linguistic" has to be made for the threshold of evidence to be evaluated. This problem is presented in the 101 class of any version of linguistics: a definition is made that encompasses its use, and in every subfield this will be slightly different. For example, the definition for language development will by necessity be different from the definition for anthropological, while anthropological will almost always exclude animals from the very beginning (usually by the definitions of "utterance", which itself has to be made more flexible if talking trying to hypothesize on hominin language). The definition is essential to the question.

Also, I agree with the implied premise here that the scientists working directly with apes will have various biases in interpreting or describing language. That does not mean, for example, that primatologists working independently cannot have definitions, or that they cannot critically evaluate their colleagues' work. Every subfield of linguistics becomes interdisciplinary eventually, so the notion that an entire field of science should be excluded is rather... early-1980s-style thinking. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. @Warrenmck could you please find a source to support the consensus that language is uniquely human? If not, I'll cut that bit. Monkeywire (talk) 23:45, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Origin of Language – Summary:

• A firm minimum time horizon for the emergence of language at 100,000 years ago.
• Overwhelming consensus (among linguists, at least) that language is a particular evolutionary development specific to humans, Homo sapiens.

The Marvel of Language: Knowns, Unknowns, and Maybes - Susan McKay

Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

That's a conference speech, for one. Two, it's not a review, but a speech, without citations to articles. As you can see, the human definition of language is part of the premise, which is precisely the point. Saying that language is specific to sapiens in particular does require rather specific demarcations of language to support that assertion. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:58, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

And btw I say this as a person who loves computational and theoretical linguistics models, who has made toy linguistics models as a hobby since high school, who made two models as part of an undergrad thesis, and taught a seminar including models. They show nothing, they prove nothing -- they are only as good as the robustness of their data, and the results that they can be proven on. Note that Scott-Phillips & Blythe 2013 have used no data. I wouldn't trust a paper like that as demonstrative of anything unless it were backed up in 3 separate directions. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:46, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I should be clear: I think ape-human communication studies are interesting and potentially fruitful avenues of exploration and have nothing but respect for most of the people who engage in those projects, because they’re a huge amount of time, work, and emotional investment for a very fascinating cause. I think reporting that apes have been demonstrated to have language, signed whole sentences, and communicated complex and abstract concepts in a way we’d recognize as language is not actually backed up by experts, but rather wishful thinking by people without training in a question they’re attempting to answer in many, but not all, cases. That wishful thinking goes so far into distorting the data, which there’s no shortage of criticisms of, that WP:PARITY applies because yeah, it is a fringe belief.

The problem with primatologists having their own definition of language is, with the exception of a single five person group I’m aware of, that’s not what’s happening. They’re arguing that apes have demonstrated language, as in the faculty humans have.

You’re right, that source could have been much better, I’ve provided a better one above.

Would both you and @Monkeywire mind taking this to the thread below? It looks like we’re splitting the same conversation a bit, sorry about that. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:57, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Monkeywire I still take issue with your more recent edits. For example:

These studies were controversial, with debate focused on the definition of language

They're controversial only when placing experts subject matter experts against non-subject matter experts, and the "debate" around the definition of language is one small team that openly admits they disagree with the consensus. WP:PARITY applies. If there is evidence that apes used language, it should be fairly easy to demonstrate subject matter experts recognizing those fidings.

The problem here is there's no truth in the middle. This is a serious, big, and popular academic field that frankly hasn't turned up the results it sought or claimed to achieve. That's not to say the experiments were a waste of time, or that there weren't interesting or valuable findings, but the wide gulf in understanding between subject matter experts and people in other fields/the general public doesn't mean we need to treat both as equally credible. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:53, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Parity really doesn't apply here. In order to show that gorilla researchers are fringe, you'd need more evidence of that. As it is, there's a field with disagreement from different types of scientists and researchers. A consensus among linguists that gorilla signing doesn't constitute language may well be in evidence. But linguists aren't biologists or geneticists or primate researchers. Andre🚐 18:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

In order to show that gorilla researchers are fringe, you'd need more evidence of that.

Frankly, this isn’t particularly hard? The people who report success with teaching apes language are, on the whole, ripped apart for methodological problems (most usually them just passing any sign through an interpretive human filter). I’m not saying the field is fringe, I’m saying reporting Koko-like successes is. That’s pretty easy to demonstrate by pointing at the responses that these claims have been met with, though the claims percolate through some other papers uncritically regardless.

Again, I think the Kanzi article is mostly in a good state as it focuses on primate intelligence and communication, as opposed to making wild claims about language. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:02, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Your argument is that the lay person's understanding of language is wrong and counter to academic's understanding of language. Is this not an admission that the definition of "language" is a key issue here? (Again, it's worth keeping in mind that the wiki audience = lay readers.) Monkeywire (talk) 19:36, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, it's somewhat semantic. Linguists choose to define a technical narrow definition of language which excludes primate sign use. This fact should be included, but attributed to linguists, not substituting the consensus in the field of linguistics for the consensus or lack thereof in the fields of evolutionary biology and primate biology. Andre🚐 19:39, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this not an admission that the definition of "language" is a key issue here?

”are apes using language” isn’t a question which is invoking the lay definition. Despite @Andrevan‘s statement about linguists narrowly defining language to exclude apes, the concept of language used by linguists deeply ties in with neuroscience, which gets to Pinker’s accusation that these language studies have studiously avoided using neurological data which would indicate if language processing is occurring. Linguistics isn’t a pure social science, after all, and neurologists has plenty to say (and uses the same definition of language, as they’re linguists).

It feels inaccurate to say primatologists want to re-define language in a way that just means “communication”, because that’s a: clearly not what they’re doing and b: clearly not what they’re communicating to the public. The arguments are “like us, apes can use language”, which is an objective question which the fields most qualified to weigh in on have, in the negative. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 19:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

That shouldn't be glossed over or removed, though. If you have sources for that, the article should say what neurologists think, what linguistics think, and then contrast that with what primate biologists have said. Andre🚐 19:55, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

COMMENT: I pinged the Primate wikiproject and started a discussion about this on the linguistics wikiproject here earlier, feel free to join at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Linguistics#Great_Ape_language_experiments

Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:44, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Need your input on Summary

I’d like others to weigh in on the summary of this page. @Warrenmck wants a clear statement that there is "no evidence of linguistic ability ever demonstrated in these studies," (sourced with a 2012 web page that makes no mention of these studies).  I have left @Warrenmck’s edits in for the time being, as @Warrenmck continually changes my efforts (on this and related pages) to dial back blanket statements and claims about unanimous opinion.

This page is intended to provide a brief overview of historic research, studies that were hotly debate at their time. As for our recent understanding, @Warrenmck and I actually agree that there is no evidence that apes can truly speak a human language. However, this historic research wasn’t entirely fruitless either, as such a blanket statement in the summary suggests.

A few links indicating that "no evidence of linguistic ability" constitutes an over-reach, one ill-fitted to a tidy summary:

• Science (2010) - https://www.jstor.org/stable/40544452
• Scientific American (2017) - https://www.jstor.org/stable/27102302

• Quarterly Review of Biology (1990) - https://www.jstor.org/stable/2832447 (review of the Gardners’ 1989 collection)

• Frontiers in Psychology (2021) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8018278/

Further, the strong wording focuses attention on one critique, shifting it from what could arguably be considered equally (if not more) substantive critiques of this research: the welfare of test subjects and the anthropocentric nature of this line of inquiry. In fact, there are two new books out now by Ingersoll and Scarna (Routledge) that make this argument.

Monkeywire (talk) 17:11, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Actually, there is evidence that great apes can learn human sign language, but it's not conclusive or people disagree on the conclusions, but it certainly shouldn't be stated in wikivoice that there is no evidence. Andre🚐 17:19, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Actually, there is evidence that great apes can learn human sign language

There is evidence they can learn signs, but not sign language. A quote from Koko (gorilla) seems pertinent here:

Linguist Sherman Wilcox, a specialist in signed languages, characterized the foundation's use of edited clips of Koko signing to be deceptive and "disrespectful of ASL," concerned that it would reinforce the perception that ASL is "only words and no syntax." (source)

Since language by definition includes syntax, which no primate language researcher I'm aware of has even argued they've observed, apes cannot be said to be using sign language, but rather using signs to communicate.

Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:37, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

From the science source you linked:

Rob Shumaker, one of five scientists who work full-time at the trust, says he does not feel besieged by the endless skepticism and outright criticism the endeavor attracts. “The people I work with, they don’t think I’m out in left field, they don’t think I’m crazy,” says Shumaker, who does language studies with the orangutans

and

Although no one disputes that apes can communicate and even learn words, much of the debate that surrounds ape language research focuses on the defi nition of language. “You can’t be an ape language researcher unless you take on what language is,” says William Fields, an ethnographer who worked with Savage-Rumbaugh in Georgia and took over the bonobo work at the trust when she retired. Whereas many linguists define language as using words with the rules of grammar and syntax, Fields argues that it is more about understanding words than producing them.

Basically your source disagrees with the expert consensus, and is open about that fact. One five-person research team who disagrees with the entire field of linguistics on what a language is doesn't warrant equal footing in the article.

The Scientific American Mind source is actually not disagreeing with my claims here:

It is not reasonable to expect other species that have the more ancient form of this gene to master the grammatical complexity of human language. And it is not reasonable to expect other species with a smaller EQ to grasp the abstract concepts that humans readily grasp. But you can expect to communicate with them about concepts that are well within their mental capacity, using simple language.

If you read the paper, it's about animal communication, not language (linguistics), which is why I think the Kanzi article is in a good place. We can certainly communicate with other species.

Your third source is a review of a book by the Gardners, behind Washoe_(chimpanzee).

Fourth source is by an animal communication psychologist and opens with

Individuals of some animal species have been taught simple versions of human language despite their natural communication systems failing to rise to the level of a simple language.

and contains

First, can animals be taught human language, even a simplified version? Second, do the natural communication systems of any animals rise to the level of simple language? Research since then has indicated that these two questions may have different answers: I would suggest a provisional yes to the first, and a provisional no to the second

Which is somewhat telling since it's coming from an expert in psychology, rather than a subject matter language expert in language. Again, the issue here is "Is this language" is a question of linguistics (and, admittedly, a subset of neuroscience). People in other fields publishing on this don't rise to WP:PARITY when they take a stance separate from the pertinent experts.

Merely noting that nonexperts agree that ape language is a thing doesn't make a compelling reason to ignore WP:RS/AC from the most pertinent field. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

There's a policy that if you want to write in the article that there's an expert consensus you need an explicit source stating that. otherwise, WP:NPOV says you need to balance the various minority viewpoints that aren't FRINGE, which this isn't - many mainstream researchers take a less dim view of the great ape language studies. Andre🚐 17:34, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

There is expert consensus, which is easy to cite and was cited. That experts in a different field disagree with that consensus doesn't change it, because the experts in question have evaluated all the same evidence and rejected that it's language. Primatologists are not experts in "what is a language" and the sources provided above even argue that they're explicitly disagreeing with the consensus definition. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:40, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

You need an explicit source that states the consensus is an overwhelming one by experts. I haven't seen that. A single study is not a review. Andre🚐 17:50, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Steven Pinker (Who I really wish I didn't have to site, but he's a [on this topic]) credible linguist:

Within the field of psychology, most of the ambitious claims about chimpanzee language are a thing of the past. Nim's trainer Herbert Terrace, as mentioned, turned from enthusiast to whistle-blower. David Premack, Sarah's trainer, does not claim that what she acquired is comparable to human language; he uses the symbol system as a tool to do chimpanzee cognitive psychology

(from The Language Instinct)

He doesn't mince words with linguistics rejecting it, either, but only pychology gets quite as unambiguous a statement.

"Why is language unique to humans?"

Cognitive neuroscience has focused on language acquisition as one of the main domains to test the respective roles of statistical vs. rule-like computation. Recent studies have uncovered that the brain of human neconates displays a typical signature in response to speech sounds even a few hours after birth. This suggests that neuroscience and linguistics converge on the view that, to a large extent, language acquisition arises due to our genetic endowment.

From a review of Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language in Language

Among scholars in disciplines that impinge on linguistics (psychology, animal communication studies, neuroscience), linguists are often seen in a poor light, as defenders of an arrogant 'specist' view of language and of human beings in general. The same attitude comes across a some journalists, eager for stories about mastery of 'language' by chimpanzees, dolphins, german shepherds, or whatever.

These are pretty broad and derisive statements. Linguists, on the whole, reject these experiments. As do cognitive psychologists (Pinker goes as far as to accuse primate language researchers of skipping the objective ways of looking at languages in brain imaging by implying that the researchers in question know the results would damn their research). These aren't even vaguely controversial in linguistics, which the prominent statements in that review should probably make clear given the source in a high impact journal. The journal of, it should be noted, the Linguistic Society of America. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:36, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

None of these statements is a clear explicit statement of an academic consensus that there is no evidence. These sources could be used in the article in some way, but they aren't the required source that would justify such a categorical statement that you want to insert. See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Academic_consensus: A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources. Editors should avoid original research especially with regard to making blanket statements based on novel syntheses of disparate material. Stated simply, any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors. Review articles, especially those printed in academic review journals that survey the literature, can help clarify academic consensus. Andre🚐 18:40, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Took me a second, but here:

Origin of Language – Summary:

• A firm minimum time horizon for the emergence of language at 100,000 years ago.
• Overwhelming consensus (among linguists, at least) that language is a particular evolutionary development specific to humans, Homo sapiens.

The Marvel of Language: Knowns, Unknowns, and Maybes - Susan McKay Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:46, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

That, again, doesn't contain the "no evidence" phrase you had inserted. I agree that we could state that there is consensus among linguists that language is a development specific to humans. But there are other kinds of biologists and scientists that aren't included in that, and again, you'd need a source that has the specific language about there being "no evidence," which again, this one doesn't include. Andre🚐 18:52, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh, come on. Evidence in one of these studies would directly counter the idea that it's exclusively human, which here we have an unambiguous statement that it's the consensus.

It's not WP:SYNTH to recognize that evidence which, if it existed, would counter the consensus cannot exist with the consensus as-is. If the consensus is that language is uniquely human then language cannot have been demonstrated in a nonhuman species, or the consensus would be something else. There's a wide disconnect between linguists/cognitive psychologists and everyone else on this, but "everyone else" isn't qualified to answer the question of "is this language". Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:59, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, no. You need an explicit statement that supports the statement you wanted to insert, otherwise, yeah it is SYNTH. You can definitely state the consensus among linguists that language is an evolutionary development specific to humans. But linguists aren't evolutionary biologists, and again, you'd need a source for the specific statement that there was no evidence in these studies, something that is neither true, nor sourced. Andre🚐 19:00, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

"A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view."

I think you're getting hung up on wanting a statement that rejects the evidence and I'm fine pointing at a statement that rejects the entire concept, which of course would include the "evidence" with it. I'll concede there's possibly an issue with the phrasing here, but that means we need to be even more careful not to accidentally WP:PROFRINGE in our attempt at nuance.

Since there's a clear and unambiguous statement of an overwhelming consensus that is mutually exclusive with the idea that evidence of ape language was demonstrated, what is your preferred phrasing here? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 19:07, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

As I said, it's not given that great ape researchers are FRINGE, at all. There is a difference of opinion as to the value of the evidence in great ape studies. A consensus among linguists is not a consensus among all scientists. I think it'd be fine to state the consensus of linguists, but that's it, going further is indeed SYNTHetic, and contrary to the policy I quoted. You can't say the concept includes the evidence, because those aren't the same, and you can't extrapolate linguists to scientists. Linguistics is a specific field of social science. There may well be a consensus within that field, but again, that does not equate to the statement "great ape studies have no evidence of language use." Again, they have evidence, but the value or conclusions to be drawn from the evidence is disputed and there are different opinions, and WP:NPOV means to balance those POVs, and not exclude the one as FRINGE that disagrees with linguists. Because, again, linguists aren't qualified to make evolutionary biology claims. Andre🚐 19:10, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

As I said, it's not given that great ape researchers are FRINGE, at all. There is a difference of opinion as to the value of the evidence in great ape studies. A consensus among linguists is not a consensus among all scientists.

I don't think the researchers are fringe, to be absolutely clear. I think some of their findings, frankly, are. The notion that apes are signing sentences is, as Thomas Sebeok put it, either outright fraud [or] self-deception.

A consensus among linguists is not a consensus among all scientists.

"All scientists" are not a monolithic block when it comes to qualifications to make certain statements. A primatologist has no inherent training in language. Indeed, a huge number of these experiments were done with scientists who didn't even know the language they were trying to teach great apes.

There may well be a consensus within that field, but again, that does not equate to the statement "great ape studies have no evidence of language use.

What basis are the researchers in question using to redefine "language" away from the understanding subject matter experts on that exact topic? Note that we've got statements of both linguists and cognitive psychologists in lockstep here (I don't think the Pinkerton quote rises to WP:RS/AC, but I do think we can use it here in discussing how this is viewed). Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 19:36, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm perfectly ok with attributing that opinion to the linguist Thomas Sebeok, or attributing the other statements to linguists in general or Pinker (a cognitive psychologist) or others in particular, who again aren't evolutionary biologists or primate biologists. And if you agree the researchers aren't fringe, that is what matters; fringe is for conspiracy theory flat earther type stuff -- not a minority view in a scientific field by credentialed, published scientists. Not agreeing with, or doubting their findings is basically a opinion of several other reliable experts particularly in the linguistic field, but we can't use that to claim there's an academic consensus that the studies lack evidence. They, again, have evidence - but the evidence is debated in the field as to what it means or whether it proves, or disproves, the theory. We need to be dispassionate in portraying this, and not erase the biologists' views citing PARITY or FRINGE. That really doesn't apply here. Andre🚐 19:42, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

It’s completely unreasonable to go fishing in a completely separate field with no training whatsoever in language to seek to counter the perspective of the community of experts on language. We don’t cite linguists on “what is an ape”, and we shouldn’t cite primatologists on “what is a language”.

It’s not erasure to say that the extraordinary claim that apes use language has been widely rejected by those most qualified to evaluate it. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:09, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Language is a multidisciplinary part of biology, not just linguistics. And neuroscience too, as you mentioned. Also philosophy and philosophy of science, not to mention the liberal arts, literature, history, etc. Language is too big of a concept to be contained entirely within linguistics and linguists be the only high priests allowed to weigh in on issues which involve it. That'd be like saying that only ballistic weapons experts are allowed to give information about cannons. Even though there are other issues about cannons that might come up, like the materials science of cannons, or the physics of cannons, or mechanical engineering of cannons, all of which are related in some way to ballistics. Or the history of cannons, the trade routes of cannon materials and so on. Andre🚐 00:15, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Cognitive psychologists are in lockstep with linguists here, and neurolinguists are most certainly part of the linguist umbrella. The only way you get a significant diversity of opinion is by getting far away from actual expertise.

That'd be like saying that only ballstic weapons experts are allowed to give information about cannons.

It’s more akin to saying primatologists are a reliable source on cannons.

Language is too big of a concept to be contained entirely within linguistics and linguists be the only high priests allowed to weigh in on issues which involve it

Are you aware of any of those disciplines, when directly discussing the concept of language, that hold linguists to be wrong? Or is that just the primatologists? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:20, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Of the 1 1/2 linguistics labs (don't ask) I've worked in and the many others I toured, there wasn't a single one that wasn't interdisciplinary in official affiliations with at least three departments (not including linguistics, because sometimes that wasn't actually a department). SamuelRiv (talk) 00:19, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Look, I don’t WP:OWN this and it’s not my intention to sort of battleground this. I think it’s best for me to take a step back since I’m not actually trying to derail all of this. I pinged both Wikiprojects and hopefully more eyes will improve the articles in general.

I do genuinely feel that anything less than making readers come away from these articles with an understanding that they did not demonstrate linguistic ability is actively misleading readers. I’m going to ping WP:FTN on this, as well. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:28, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I posted above why this is not an appropriate source. There are tons of academic literature reviews on the animal-language problem. Let's limit a discussion about any kind of scholarly consensus to academic reviews, like we would for any other topic. I cannot engage with anything else. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:03, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

You’re actually right re: sourcing, I think I’d misread WP:RS/AC there. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:21, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Actually, academic reviews aren't a qualifier for this and the provided statement does actually seem to pass Wikipedia's standard for WP:RS/AC? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 18:18, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Please see SamuelRiv's point above. I'm not going to contine interacting with you on this. You are missing the point about the need to define language before making an out-of-context, blanket statement about it.... going into a detailed definition of language in the brief intro on a page about these historic studies is not appropriate. The evolving definition of language will need to be considered in the analysis/criticisms subsection of the page, and can be included there. Monkeywire (talk) 19:44, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:RSN doesn’t seem to fully agree. SamuelRiv’s argument includes stipulations WP:RS/AC doesn’t require. The provided source does seem to pass WP:RS/AC, and there’s been no evidence presented for an evolving definition of language, only one small group disagreeing with the consensus. It’s appropriate to say these studies have not demonstrated language.

You’re of course free to disengage, but a lot of the content (not necessarily about the definition of language, but these studies not being accepted by qualified experts) will almost certainly need to be added back in to not misinform readers. I hope we can work on improving these articles cooperatively, you definitely have already improved some of my edits! Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 20:14, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

It does not. It would have to make a claim in the voice of the publication of the consensus existing. A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view The source doesn't say it, regardless of how good a source it is. Andre🚐 20:18, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I do not believe that is a correct interpretation of WP:RS/AC, nor do others at WP:RSN. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 20:23, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

You are just incorrect on that point. The text you added appeared nowhere in the source ("no evidence...") and the RSN discussion does not weigh in on that question or issue; even if they had, you need to provide the context. It's unambiguous that you cannot source the claim you were sourcing with the source you provided. Andre🚐 20:32, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

If there is overwhelming consensus that it’s an exclusively human faculty than any evidence to the contrary is contrary to the consensus. This line of argument is incredibly strange. Multiple times I’ve asked for sources that counter the ones I’m providing which aren’t from an unrelated field, and I haven’t seen those yet, nor have I seen a response to the point-by-point breakdown of the sources which were used above to argue against that. You opened here with a flat statement that you believed language had been demonstrated in great apes.

I understand your personal perspective on this, but it doesn’t seem you’re maintaining an WP:NPOV in editing here. I’m not sure what more I can do, because it appears the idea that these experiments have not demonstrated language is a completely untenable position to you. For example, tthe notion that this hinges on the definition of language is not an argument made in all but one of these cases, and that one explicitly acknowledges that they’re doing so as opposed to arguing that there have been successes per a distinct definition.

The overwhelming evidence that has been provided here by subject matter experts, who are not primatologists (and users at WP:RSN agree), is that the notion of apes using language is not accepted. It is not reasonable to pick a field against WP:BESTSOURCES and pretend that carries as much weight as the actual experts on a topic. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 20:47, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

No, that's unpermissible WP:SYNTH. You're doing logic beyond what the source offers. Your accusation that I am not maintaining NPOV is not well-taken, as I said it should be portrayed as a contested and controversial set of studies, but it's pretty clear that apes have used sign language. Now you say they are using signs but not language. That is splitting hairs and semantic. The bottom line here is that if you want to state that there is an academic consensus that there was no evidence of language use in great ape studies, a source must say that, not something kind of similar to that which can have the dots connected to possibly imply that. Andre🚐 20:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Of course it's not WP:SYNTH. The overwhelming consensus of physicists is that the standard model is the most accurate model of subatomic physics we have, it's not WP:SYNTH to discount a fringe theory on the basis of the academic consensus even if the academic consensus never touches on the fringe theory. And Primatologists are not reliable sources on the topic of the demonstration of language, which right now seems to be the stance of WP:RSN, so while you're free to disagree I'm not alone here. Per WP:ECREE, ECREE applies when:

* Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest;

* Claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions—especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living and recently dead people. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them.

These are exceptional claims, WP:ECREE applies, and the consensus of experts doesn't require synthesis to reject exceptional claims.

, as I said it should be portrayed as a contested and controversial set of studies, but it's pretty clear that apes have used sign language.

Except it's so unclear that it's universally rejected by experts. Apes have used signs, not sign language. Again, I've asked you for a source that subject matter experts have agreed with your perspective and none has been forthcoming. Your idea that this is "pretty clear" is why I think this is an WP:NPOV editing problem.

Now you say they are using signs but not language.

Quite literally my first reply to Monkeywire, and the first reply to anyone here, was There is evidence they can learn signs, but not sign language. This has been my stance from the start, and a lot of my edits to the articles have been to remove "language" but leave in "signs".

That is splitting hairs and semantic

No, it is not. It profoundly is not. Demonstrating sign language would fundamentally upend our understanding of nature. Signs are, of couse, something great apes are quite competent with. As I quoted above (and the citation is up there)

Linguist Sherman Wilcox, a specialist in signed languages, characterized the foundation's use of edited clips of Koko signing to be deceptive and "disrespectful of ASL," concerned that it would reinforce the perception that ASL is "only words and no syntax."

By all means, go to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deaf and ask if that's splitting semantic hairs. Even Francine Patterson didn't argue syntax had been observed in Koko, I believe, for all her wild claims.

The bottom line here is that if you want to state that there is an academic consensus that there was no evidence of language use in great ape studies, a source must say that

Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:12, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

There is absolutely no consensus on RSN that your text was acceptable per RS/AC. You quoted a different piece of text there and the responses supportive to you don't address the meat of the issue. While other responses are less supportive, such as the recent comment by KoH. Andre🚐 21:16, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Respectully, I never claimed there was consensus (hence right now) and you're ignoring a hell of a lot of substantive responses which directly address points you raised. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:20, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not valid because you asked them, are primatologists a valid source on the question of "what is language." But we're not trying to answer that question directly. That misleading framing led to the response you got. Nobody's trying to use primatologists to define language, but you were adding text saying there was no evidence of language use in primatology studies. Such a conclusion must appear in the source explicitly. The question to ask is about a specific source and a specific usage to support a specific claim, or whether a source is generally reliable or not. Andre🚐 21:37, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Would you mind addressing any of the points of substance, rather than just the WP:RSN thing? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 21:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

When I said "now you say" I didn't mean your position had changed. I meant, "now..., moving to, you say..." just a wording thing. And as far as the other points... I'm not necessarily saying that apes using language isn't an extraordinary claim. But the primatology sources are suitably reliable for the claims they make if attributed to them. It would be a problem if we had primatologists saying that apes definitely had used language according to the linguists' definition. But when there's one scientific field, the main field here, that has some studies and research, those are reliable enough to include. The thing I'm objecting to is not including linguists' views. I think it'd be fine to say, paraphrasing the other source you cited earlier, that linguists generally believe language is a thing only humans have been proven to do. That isn't the same as linguists having an opinion on the amount of evidence in primatology studies, unless they have specifically said that. Andre🚐 21:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

It would be a problem if we had primatologists saying that apes definitely had used language according to the linguists' definition.

Can you provide a source that they're using a distinct definition? Because this doesn't actually seem backed up by the papers or how the researchers present their work.

I'm not necessarily saying that apes using language isn't an extraordinary claim.

Then WP:ECREE applies and we cannot cite experts in a wholly unrelated field without specialized training to upend the academic consensus. Even if you believe these experiments have demonstrated language, Wikipedia's inclusion standards aren't in favour of treating these claims seriously.

That isn't the same as linguists having an opinion on the amount of evidence in primatology studies, unless they have specifically said that.

Okay, so this is where I feel I need to say "oh, come on" a bit. Climatologists don't need to weigh in on individual engineers publishing anti-AGW papers, regardless of the fact that they're a: credible academics otherwise and b: getting those papers into journals. Likewise, Linguists don't need to be overly concerned with people making fringe claims outside their domain of knowledge that run counter to the overwhelming consensus. That'd mean researchers would have to play whack-a-mole with fringe claims for Wikipedia to not be a hot mess. That's kind of the important point of WP:ECREE; these findings would fundamentally upend the academic consensus on a specific topic. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 22:01, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

The problem is we're not claiming that primatologists have expertise in Language According to Linguistics. They have a specialized field that they study in. So, it doesn't mean that ECREE says we can't cite them for their own work in their own field. And as far as the "oh, come on," I'd say that's the crux of the dispute. Primatologists aren't grinding an ax against the linguists. You need a specific, explicit source if you think the linguists were debunking the primatologists. Otherwise it is indeed hair-splitting to say that using signs isn't using language. Words are indeed a component of language. If I walk up to you and use some kind of caveman pidgin to communicate but it lacks a recognizably consistent grammar or syntax, that'd still be language in the lay meaning of language, even if a linguistics expert might say it isn't. That was KoH's point on RSN. Andre🚐 22:24, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

The problem is we're not claiming that primatologists have expertise in Language According to Linguistics.

Do they have expertise in language according to anyone? And if they do, are they publishing in journals where the referees are qualified to weigh in on language claims? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 22:31, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

If I walk up to you and use some kind of caveman pidgin to communicate but it lacks a recognizably consistent grammar or syntax, that'd still be language in the lay meaning of language, even if a linguistics expert might say it isn't.

Would it, really? I suspect if there was just disordered words without grammar or syntax a lay person would more likely call it word salad than language. Except that the entire purpose of these experiments is to demonstrate the use of language, not "literally any form of communication". Nobody is arguing great apes can't communicate, and even communicate well. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 22:53, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't follow all this back-and-forth but a peer-reviewed article Warren pointed me to earlier actually does include a statement about consensus among linguists for language being uniquely human. I'm going to revise the intro, adding a line about this consensus and adjusting the bit about ape sentences to more closely reflect the cited source.

Note that the article's author does NOT share Warren's certainty about the ape language studies, and leaves open as a "maybe" wrt Kanzi and the possibility that some species may be found to have human-like communication (she thinks dolphins and whales are most likely).  

. Monkeywire (talk) 22:27, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

tagging @Warrenmck Monkeywire (talk) 22:30, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Fine by me. Andre🚐 22:31, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

...the possibility that some species may be found to have human-like communication (she thinks dolphins and whales are most likely).

For all my apparent dogmatism here on "human only" I actually personally find these somewhat convincing. I just know I'm against the grain of linguists on that, for now.

Kanzi is a tricky one, note that I mostly left that article alone. I think the biggest thing is that we need to not present claims that any of these apes communicated via language in wikivoice, and say that it has not been demonstrated yet. I'm not calling for a statement that it's impossible. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 22:34, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Penny Patterson is an educated Tonia Haddix, but I agree with the linguist that there is enough anecdotal evidence with Koko (first-person accounts by people who aren't Penny, some deaf) to show that Koko had some serious skills, even if scholars wouldn't call it language. Monkeywire (talk) 23:15, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Watch the video of Koko and Robin Williams. I know it's not an RS. But that is one smart and sad and empathic gorilla. [3] Andre🚐 23:33, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's any disagreement on that front. :) Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:36, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to axe the comment about the grammatical ability of a three year old.

To date, apes have not demonstrated the ability to construct sentences with the grammatical complexity of a three-year-old child.

to cut out the "three year old child" section. I'm unaware of pertinent sources presenting apes with any concrete level of grammar, but can site the inverse readily:

Human language is distinguished from animal communication most readily by its use of (a) symbols and (b) grammar.

- If They're So Good at Grammar, Then Why Don't They Talk? Hints From Apes' and Humans' Use of Gestures

I show that very young children’s lan-guage is consistent with a productive grammar rather thanmemorization of specific word combinations from caregivers’ speech.Furthermore, I provide a statistically rigorous demonstrationthat the sign use of Nim Chimpsky, the chimpanzee who wastaught American Sign Language, does not show the expectedproductivity of a rule-based grammar.

- Ontogeny and phylogeny of language (for Nim)

[F]indings from language acquisition suggest that human infants do not show an initial preference for certain hierarchical syntactic structures. Infants are slow to acquire and generalize the structures in question, but they can eventually do so. Kanzi, in contrast, is dendrophobic: even though his non-hierarchical strategy impairs comprehension, he never acquires the hierarchical structure.

-Dendrophobia in Bonobo Comprehension of Spoken English (for Kanzi)

Note that the dendrophbia paper is directly about the same thing that lead to the claim in the lede:

When Kanzi was nine years old, Savage-Rumbaugh tested his comprehension of simple requests against that of a two-and-a-half year-old human child, Alia. Kanzi correctly carried out 72 percent of the requests, and Alia correctly carried out 66 percent.
On the basis of this and much other similar evidence, Savage-Rumbaugh concluded that Kanzi’s linguistic abilities approximated those of a two-to-three year old human being.

etc. etc. etc. The current citation is an opinion piece in a pop-sci mag, and I don't think I'm comfortable just outright dismissing Kanzi like I am the rest, but I don't think the 2-3 year old claim warrants being presented in the lede here, perhaps maybe in passing that her trainer believes it on the section for Kanzi himself. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 23:59, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

• Here's the thing, Warrenmck. So far, you are mostly arguing that primate language studies are fringe because they are wrong... that's necessary, but not sufficient, to be fringe. Fringe theories are things like denying that anthropogenic climate change is real. The nature of language and whether animal language models have any merit isn't the type of theory where there are copious reliable sources debunking it and basically saying that it's for cuckoobirds. These primatologists and other animal language scientists are actually trying to construct animal language models. Nobody knows if apes have language. It's not just an academic consensus that everyone is like yeah, apes definitely don't have language, and anyone who goes near that is basically barking mad. If that were the case, you should be able to give us a source that says that - academic consensus is clear that apes don't have language. Until then, we need to treat primatology the field and primatologists' studies as contested and controversial - not as fringe which needs to be completely excluded. If you can provide me with a reliable source, or really several, that say that there's a clear academic consensus, not just one limited to linguists, that primatology is pseudoscience, that would completely change the conversation. Andre🚐 00:08, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  So far, you are mostly arguing that primate language studies are fringe because they are wrong

  Not at all. Being wrong is, of course, perfectly acceptable in the sciences. It’s that the authors claiming to have demonstrated language haven’t done so to any accepted standard by the experts on that topic and then they’ve doubled down, gone on media blitzes, been hesitant to publish raw data or in peer review (in some cases), and, most importantly, absolutely refuse to consider peer feedback if it means their work isn’t a success. And the claim that great apes have language is absolutely WP:ECREE.

  This doesn’t apply to all of the experiments, to be sure, but it’s somewhat telling that the more rigorous the methodology the less extraordinary the results, on a spectrum from Kanzi to Koko. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:14, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  So then where's the source that says, something along the lines of, primatology studies are mostly considered methodologically flawed by academic consensus? That might be true of some studies, but as you say, there is a range, and also a chronology. Which is what @Monkeywire was doing I thought, improving the article by walking through the history and organizing it better, so that we can see how studies have evolved, and standards. Standards for research are a lot stronger since the 1990s, whereas work that was done in the 60s like John C. Lilly's work on dolphins would never pass muster today. But studies like Koko and Washoe are studied in undergrad seminars because they're seminal. Andre🚐 00:19, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  You know, I’d be amazed if there’s not a WP:RS/AC source that says that. Koko, for example, has been routinely ripped apart in the literature for self-delusion on the part of researchers in their “interpretations” of Koko’s signing. I’m not as well versed on the primatology side, though. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:32, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  The problems of asserting Koko etc are using sign language as a language is one thing. The notion of there being no evidence of language use is another thing entirely. There's plenty of direct criticism of the existing great ape language research, as you rightly added to the articles. But the blanket statement on the nature of language in general was bizarre, and especially so considering the source you used. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:48, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  What evidence is there of language being used by (nonnuman) great apes that doesn’t come with a unique definition of language? Ideally published by subject matter experts? Sincere question. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:00, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  Every definition of language is unique. I mean, if you're trying to get foundational from a human standpoint you look at de Saussure or Wittgenstein (meh, not gonna disambig, picking the correct one is an exercise to the reader). If you're getting practical from an analysis standpoint you use something closer to what's in the Wikipedia article. But that's different if you're getting practical from a clinical perspective, as in for child development or working with impairment/disability (again, still human, but if a person is physically incapable of utterance by standard definition, you must change the definition). Animal language is entirely dependent on the definition of language. And a definition is just part of creating a model, and a model's acceptability relates to (among other things) its predictive power, adaptability, and relationship to other accepted principles. I think that's a pretty fair general description for everything from philosophical-of-language to lab research. SamuelRiv (talk) 02:15, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, but if you’re claiming to teach a chimp ASL (or a version of it)… Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 04:07, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  I honestly don't care. I have taken issue with a single line, and I've already laid this out. On the one line about the nature of language, an extremely generalized statement, your sources to this point have been crap and you should know better. And I am trying to mock you in the best of humor because you should know that you know better. You should know how to correctly apply scientific sources to support a generalized claim. And there is no shortage of sources, such as these. SamuelRiv (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yes @Andrevan, I'm working my way down the ape language page but paused to do Nim Chimsky and now am turning to Koko. I will continue to work on this page but am saving results/debate synthesis for last, as I still have reading to do for that. Monkeywire (talk) 01:14, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  Just be sure to keep in mind that Koko.org is wildly unreliable as a source there. :) Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:56, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, no kidding Monkeywire (talk) 01:59, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

@Monkeywire I feel you’re acting before any consensus has been reached. An article about great ape communication certainly warrants a mention that it’s unique to humans, we just haven’t decided how to factor dissent in tangentially related fields into that question. Even if it ends up removed, we’re still very much in the discuss part of WP:BRD. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:10, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

From where I sit Monkeywire was doing good work, you had some concerns, we edit warred a bit and now SamuelRiv and I are both siding more with Monkeywire I think. Not sure that all progress needs to halt while the 3 forums you pinged decide whether to come discuss here, as currently, there is 3-to-1 that your source didn't meet WP:RS/AC. Andre🚐 01:12, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

In addition to the probs. with the source and the issue over defining "language," it reads as weirdly defensive, as if we humans are concerned about the competition. Monkeywire (talk) 01:17, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

The only source I’m aware of explicitly attempting to use a different definition of language is one small group which acknowledges that their desired change is against the consensus (and makes an interesting and nuanced case around that, to be fair)? It reads a bit odd to me to make this defensive case that none of these researchers are actually making. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Four to zero, actually. I agreed with SamuelRiv and had partially misread WP:RS/AC. That said, I don’t think removing statements that language is uniquely human is doing readers any favours. We really can’t compare the stance of inexpert (on language) primatologists against the strong (though not WP:RS/AC) consensus among actual subject matter experts, not just linguists. I’m open to being wrong here, but it’s not reasonable to “pick a side” and overly rely on people in an unrelated field when it disagrees with the consensus of that field, because we need to consider WP:ECREE, and the claims here are absolutely extraordinary. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:36, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say you're the one picking the side. I'd like to portray the research as controversial and contested without picking a side, since nobody really knows if apes have the cognition to be capable of language or not. You seem to be picking the side that they don't, and responding to the sensationalism of the research by wanting to negate it altogether, but I don't know that we have the right sourcing to do that. Andre🚐 02:01, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say you're the one picking the side. I'd like to portray the research as controversial and contested without picking a side

I would like to portray it accurately. I think you and I are talking across each other a bit. I'm not dismissing research into great apes and languages as WP:FRINGE, I'm dismissing claims that language has been demonstrated as WP:FRINGE. For example, this line:

and use of language to date remains seen as a uniquely human ability

Is clearly the mainstream scholarly perspective, even lacking a source that arrives at the standard of WP:RS/AC, the sheer volume of unchallenged statements to that effect in the pertinent fields should make the WP:REDFLAGs here very obvious. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS is clear on this:

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

...

Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source or information that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible.

We can take this to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard rather than argue about it, but I don't know why it's so controversial that someone who is trained in primatology, who is not trained in linguistics or any aspect of language science other than as it pertains directly to signing at apes, is being given WP:UNDUE weight when viscerally disagreeing with the academic consensus of the actual subject matter experts.

A primatologist is 0% qualified to answer the question "is this language" any more than an astrophysicist is qualified to answer question about primate taxonomy. People making wild claims outside their field that make it through peer review are a constant issue in sciences, and WP:BESTSOURCES calls on us to evaluate the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources which simply doesn't apply to the primatological papers here. It reminds me of certain engineers and physicsts publishing on climate science (in non-climate science journals). They can get papers out and through peer review, but the second actual subject matter experts get into the debate they're ripped to shreds. The same pattern played out here, and we shouldn't "teach the controversy". I feel like you and @Monkeywire have, to a degree, glossed over the need for WP:ECREE here, which specifically calls for:

Claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions

The relevant community for the determination of what is and is not language is not primatologists. That's not even a tangentially related discipline. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:03, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Please take a look at the clarification of Sunrise's comments on the RSN, as I said earlier. Andre🚐 00:07, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Would you accept "no compelling evidence"? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:14, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Of course not. Whatever the statement is, it needs to be paraphrasing a source. Andre🚐 00:24, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Even you've acknowledge WP:ECREE applies here, so I'm not sure why, again, we're fixating on an extreme minority opinion in an unrelated field. We do not expect sources to proactively discredit WP:FRINGE stances and the mere fact that the fringe stance is wildly against the academic consensus is sufficient in those cases. How, precisely, would you like to handle this? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:27, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Monkeywire added The consensus among linguists remains that language is unique to humans to the article, doesn't that cover the sentiment you want? Andre🚐 00:31, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

You know what, I think it's too narrow and makes linguists seem like they're standing on an island against these findings and not a very tiny subset of primatologists standing on an island supporting it, but I don't think I have it in me to continue this one. It's certainly better than what was there before. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 00:46, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean, if you find a better source for this, by all means. But we need to respect Wikipedia:Text-source integrity Andre🚐 00:54, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I think there's a degree to which the burden of evidence for the inclusion of WP:ECREE content needs to meet the whole appropraite-sources-for-the-claims thing, which wouldn't just mean the very few primatologists doing this kind of work here and people in other fields uncritically citing them. It's WP:REDFLAG that as soon as a field actually is one with expertise on this exact thing the findings are rejected, but admittedly on a paper-by-paper basis in some cases and not WP:RS/AC.

But like I said, I don't have it in me to keep this up on this specific one. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 01:00, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

We can drop it, but ECREE doesn't say the multiple, high-quality sources required have to be from the linguistic field. The primatologists, inasmuch as their work is discussed in many reliable sources, are successfully meeting the burden of ECREE. Andre🚐 01:04, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I still feel you and @Monkeywire are presenting this article in a way that’s causing WP:UNDUE issues. Reading through it it’s quite tricky to get the impression that the controversy is split by field, rather than just a small subset of primatologists are in favour of the language findings. I’m trying to edit quite lightly right now but readers really shouldn’t be coming away from any of these articles with the impression that language has been demonstrated to any meaningful significant academic acceptance, even if we’re ignoring the divide between linguists and others. I definitely think the notion that primatologists are meeting WP:ECREE is beyond absurd. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 10:28, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I've only gotten to the first half of the page -- haven't even started the criticism / controversies section! Monkeywire (talk) 13:20, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Question asking -comparison

In the section on Question asking I put in a note, with a reference, to how dogs and cats DO both often ask questions with Talk Buttons. I thought this was a relevent comparison- if you think apes NOT asking questions is important, this gives perspective. My addition was promptly removed. I maintain that its a relevant comparison. IceDragon64 (talk) 21:53, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I believe it was cut for not being a reliable source. YouTube is not an RS unless the channel is a legitimate, recognized (journalistic, academic, scientific) source. Monkeywire (talk) 18:36, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed Andre🚐 19:05, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Cut Question-Asking section?

Any objections for cutting this section entirely? I consider it too "in the weeds" and diverts from the main takeaway that apes aren't "speaking language." It makes a number of errors, and doing the topic justice would require adding a lot more material.

There were a number of criticisms of ape language research I have left out of this page because they have been proven incorrect -- for example, claims that apes didn't use symbols to communicate; didn't have a theory of mind; didn't plan future actions; that they only used signs to request food. (Perhaps I should add a sentence or two to that effect?) We now know that apes in captive settings and in the wild "ask" each other to play, groom, and share food. In Ameslan, the difference between asking a question and stating a fact can in some cases be determined by facial expression, in the same way that verbal English can use tone. So I think this section is misleading and yet I'm not expert in linguistics or animal cognition enough to succinctly clarity without making other errors. Thoughts? Monkeywire (talk) 16:31, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

For a fun example of nonlinguistic ape communication, see the pointing orangutan: https://www.tiktok.com/@getlostwebsite/video/7346592949666385184 Monkeywire (talk) 16:33, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

The section seems sourced. It certainly needs a rewrite in order to communicate its topic, but the topic is arguable reputable. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:39, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I'm keeping the sourced material but editing out unsourced claims and a bit about linguistics that got off topic (was focused more on Jordania's evolutionary arguments than the topic at hand) Monkeywire (talk) 15:40, 31 October 2024 (UTC)