>While it may be true that nonhuman primates do have the ability for
>rather sophisticated communication, their language structure has never
>be demonstrated to even come close to the complexity of human language.
>Human language universally involves complex rules which even those
>celebrated apes (Nim Chimpsky, Washoe, Koko, Sarah etc.) trained to sign
>were never able to reproduce.
I absolutely agree with this. Most chimps and gorillas are unable to acquire
more than a 150 word vocabulary in sign language(contra all the claims of
language fluency made in the press). When I knew only 150 words in
Mandarin, I could hardly ask my way to the bathroom.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm