MONKEYS HAVE A LANGUAGE.

Shannon News, 12 January 1926, Page 1

MONKEYS HAVE A LANGUAGE.

THEY EVEN LAUGH AT THEIR OWN, JOKES. Sir H. M. Stanley records that the Pigmy tribes of '. Central Africa converse in a series of tongue-clackings and monosyllables, and that their vocabulary probably does not exceed a couple of hundred words. Go to the Eoo and you will hear the monkeys talking in much the same way. The fact that we do not understand their conversation Is no hotter proof that they have not a spoken language than the fact that we do not understand Pigmy speech or "Choctaw." Even before the phonograph wat invented, Professor Richard L. Garner spent long years ,and much patience hi the attt-mpt to commit to writing the language of the Simians. He had a little arbour built for himself in the monkey forests, and there he listened and recorded, and came to the conclusion, that monkeys have a definite vocabulary qf their own. Now the phonograph has come, to his aid ,and he lias secured innumerable records of the strange and apparently incoherent sounds which monkeys make. He surrounds a cage of monkeys with phonographic recievers ,and wh.ih he has obtained his records he tvies them on* the monkeys. The result has even exceeded expectations. The test is: Docs a certain sound, of series of sounds, produc e a definite reply in return, or result in a certain action on. the part of the monkey hearers? When the phonograph speaks the monkey, language, do the monkeys give the proper monkey rely either in wiord or deed? The professor declares they do, and he is prepared to demonstrate the fact that his monkeys always give the same response to a , particular sound The language of monkeys should not be difficult to learn, , or require a very big dictionary, for, although the professor has been studying it for thirty years he has only succeeded in definitely identifying twenty-seven distinct and individual sounds, although he has listened to thousands of monkeys talking 'nineteen to the dozen."

But the most interesting result of the professor's patient investigations is,that, of the twenty-seven sounds recorded, he has discovered what twenty-three of them mean, and he can toll exactly what his monkey hearers will say or do in reply! The exactness with which the phonograph reproduces monkey pronunciation 1 represents the real triumph of the method, because hitherto this difficulty was the great stumblingblock. Even the best made mimics find animalsounds difficult to imitate even when they are no more intricate than the grunt of a pig or the neigh of a horse, and the guttural elickings of monkey language are almost beyond the human glottis . The professor's discovery of a definite monkey language naturally leads to the question whether all the higher animals have not a mode of speech. Listen to a dog asking his master to take him for a walk when he sees him don his hat and coat. He makes sounds quite unlike barking or yelping. And can we believe that the little hen bird on the nest does not undrstand her 'mate's love-song? It used to be said that man was the only creature that could laugh and smile, despite the "laughing jackass" and the "laughing hyaena," but Professor Garner is convinced that monkeys not only speak, but that they have a strong sense of humour.