The Speech of MonkeysGarner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Science
The Speech of Monkeys
Garner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Monkeys; Sound production by animals; Speech
Then returning to me, still standing erect, he would
renew this plaintive speech in the most earnest manner, and continue it
until another gust would call him to the window. I observed that each
time he went to the window he uttered the same sound, as well as I could
detect by ear, and would stand for some time watching out of the window,
and occasionally turn his head and repeat this sound to me. When
returning to me again, he would resume his sad story, whatever it was. I
secured a good record of that part of his speech which was made when
near me at the front of the cage, but the remarks made while at the
window were not so well recorded, yet they were audible, and I
reproduced them on the phonograph at a subsequent visit. My opinion was
that the sound he uttered while at the window must allude in some way to
the state of the weather, and this opinion was confirmed by the fact
that on a later occasion, when I repeated the record to him, the weather
was fair; but when the machine repeated those sounds which he had
uttered at the window on the day of the storm, it would cause him to
turn away and look out of the window; while at the other part of the
record he evinced but little interest, and, in fact, seemed rather to
avoid the phonograph as though the sounds suggested something which he
disliked. I am quite sure that the remarks which he made to me at the
front of the cage were a complaint of some kind, and, from its
intonation and the manner in which it was delivered, I believed that it
was an expression of pain. It occurred to me that the state of the
weather might have something to do with his feelings, and that he was
conscious of this fact, and desired to inform me of it.
About a year from that time, I became quite intimate with a feeble
little monkey, which is described elsewhere by the name of Pedro, and of
whose speech I made a good record. The sounds of his speech so closely
resembled those made by Dago, that I was not able to see that they
differed in any respect, except in loudness. Unfortunately, the
cylinders containing Dago's record had been broken in shipping, and I
was therefore unable to compare the two by analysis; but the sounds
themselves resembled in a striking degree, and the manner of delivery
was not wholly unlike, except that Pedro did not assume the same pose
nor emphasise them with the same gestures.
[Sidenote: DODO, THE JULIET OF THE TRIBE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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