The Speech of MonkeysGarner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Science
The Speech of Monkeys
Garner, R. L. (Richard Lynch)
Monkeys; Sound production by animals; Speech
I find, by means of many experiments, that much depends upon the manner
of delivering these sounds; but that the animal is largely guided by the
sound alone is proven by the fact that some dogs understand English,
others French, German, or some other language, and they do not really
understand unless addressed in the speech with which they are familiar.
A short time since I tried a novel experiment with the phonograph and
two black-and-tan terriers, mother and son. The son was a notorious
talker in the way of barking almost continuously at everything, and on
all occasions and at all times, while the mother was naturally taciturn,
good-natured, and fairly intelligent. I first took the son to a room
where I had the phonograph, and I made a record of a number of sounds of
his voice. The children aided me in the experiment by getting him to
talk for food, bark at his image in the mirror, and by various other
ways they induced him to other sounds in the presence of the phonograph.
A few days later I had them bring the mother to the same place, where I
discharged the contents of my phonograph cylinder in her presence. She
gave every evidence of recognising the sounds of the young dog, and in a
few instances responded to them. She was naturally perplexed at not
being able to find him, and searched the horn and various parts of the
room in quest of the young dog. I delivered to her at the same time the
record of another dog, to which she paid little attention except by an
occasional growl and a look into the horn to see what it meant. She
evidently recognised the sounds of the young dog with which she was
familiar and seemed to interpret their meanings, whereas the sounds from
the other cylinder did little more than attract her attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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