Aping Dr Dolittle
A Japanese researcher reckons he will soon have monkeys communicating with humans....and it could reveal how language evolved.
Thursday November 25, 2004 / The Guardian
In a laboratory in Saitama, central Japan, monkeys are behaving strangely. If someone sticks out a tongue, they do the same. If a person goes to unclip the latch on a box, the monkeys follow suit. If they need a rake to reach a piece of fruit, they ask for it with a special call. All of which is confounding experts, because none of it should be possible. Monkeys in the wild rarely ape, and as far as we know, they never, ever, ask for rakes.
The Japanese macaques raised in Atsushi Iriki's lab are not particularly gifted. But intriguingly, he expects them soon to be communicating with him vocally, using simple linguistic rules. This isn't just an elegant Dr Dolittle curiosity: it holds the real possibility of understanding autism in humans and unlocking the vast unused power of the human brain.....more....
