The Speech of MonkeysGarner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Science
The Speech of Monkeys
Garner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Monkeys; Sound production by animals; Speech
depend upon the extent of those ideas; and in all conditions of life,
and in all forms of the animal kingdom, the uses of speech are confined
to, and limited by the desires, thoughts, and concepts of those using
it. Its extent is commensurate with requirement. To believe that there
was a time in the history of the human race when man could not speak, is
to destroy his identity as man, and the romance of the _alalus_ could be
justified from a scientific standpoint only as a compromise between the
giants of science and superstition. Among the tribes of men whose modes
of life are simple, whose wants are few, and whose knowledge is confined
to their primitive condition, the number of words necessary to convey
their thoughts is very limited. Among some savage races there are
languages consisting of only a few hundred words at most, while as we
rise in the scale of civil and domestic culture, languages become more
copious and expressive as the wants become more numerous and the
conditions of life more complex. As we descend from man to the lower
animals, we find the types of speech degenerate just in proportion as we
descend in the mental and moral plane, but it does not lose its identity
as speech. Through the whole animal kingdom from man to protozoa, types
of speech differ as do the physical types to which they belong. But as
the same vital processes are found throughout the whole circle of life,
so the same phonetic basis is found through the whole range of speech.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Motives of Speech--Expression--The Beginning of Human
Speech--The Present Condition of Speech.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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