Nature vs. Nurture: Language Edition

Noam Chomsky says that language is a uniquely human phenomenon. Even without this challenging and controversial claim, linguists have been trying to teach language to non-human species for the past century.

One of the most notable attempts of this sort was made in the 1930's by Winthrop and Luella Kellogg. Just three months after their son was born, the Kellogg family welcomed Gua the chimpanzee into their home. Their mission was to raise Gua alongside their son to scientifically compare the rate and extent of language acquisition between the two species. By the time Gua turned three the Kelloggs observed that she had not acquired much, if any, language. However, their son had developed a very, very convincing imitation of a chimpanzee. At this point the Kelloggs aborted their experiment.

Many other experiments (albeit more conventional and less personally risky) of this sort have been completed, with some success, however, thus far all of these experiments have more or less reached the conclusion that non-human species can acquire a complex system of signs, but their communication lacks several crucial elements of genuine language.