Monkey Language and Human Lineage
PROF. R. L. GARNER, who for many years has been making a study of monkeys and their language in the jungles of Africa, arrived at Boston on November 7. He claims to have “200 phonograph cylinders filled with monkey talk,” and also makes the claim of being able to hold short conversations with gorillas and chimpanzees. There is no doubt that animals have sounds and signs by which they make their wishes or intentions known to each other. The mother hen sends her brood to cover by a sound which is almost imperceptible to a person. The language of the quail is equally well understood by her offspring. The whinny of the horse or the silent movings of the lips are a language to the members of that family. So the fact that Mr. Garner has discovered some of the meanings of the sounds which the monkeys produce does not prove them to have been the progenitors of man. A language they have without doubt, but human lineage never. As well might we say that fowls are of human origin, because we find in man a lingering desire to fly.