Editing Chimpanzee (section)

===Language===
{{Main |Great ape language}}
[[File:HugoRheinholdApeWithSkull.DarwinMonkey.2.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[Hugo Rheinhold]]'s ''[[Affe mit Schädel]]'' ("Ape with skull"), {{Circa|1893}}]]
Scientists have attempted to teach human [[language]] to several species of great ape. One early attempt by Allen and Beatrix Gardner in the 1960s involved spending 51 months teaching [[American Sign Language]] to a chimpanzee named [[Washoe (chimpanzee)|Washoe]]. The Gardners reported that Washoe learned 151 signs, and had spontaneously taught them to other chimpanzees, including her adopted son, [[Loulis]].<ref>{{Cite journal |author1=Gardner, R. A. |author2=Gardner, B. T. |year=1969 |title=Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee |journal=Science |volume=165 |pages=664–672 |doi=10.1126/science.165.3894.664 |pmid=5793972 |issue=3894 |bibcode=1969Sci...165..664G |citeseerx=10.1.1.384.4164}}</ref> Over a longer period of time, Washoe was reported to have learned over 350 signs.<ref>{{Cite book |author1=Allen, G. R. |author2=Gardner, B. T. |year=1980 |chapter=Comparative psychology and language acquisition |editor-first1=T. A. |editor-last1=Sebok |editor-first2=J. |editor-last2=Umiker-Sebok |title=Speaking of Apes: A Critical Anthology of Two-Way Communication with Man |location=New York |publisher=Plenum Press |pages=287–329 |isbn=978-0-306-40279-1}}</ref>

Debate is ongoing among scientists such as [[David Premack]] about chimpanzees' ability to learn language. Since the early reports on Washoe, numerous other studies have been conducted, with varying levels of success.<ref name="GAT">{{cite web |url=http://www.greatapetrust.org/bonobo/language/ |title=Language of bonobos |publisher=Great Ape Trust |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040815161414/http://www.greatapetrust.org/bonobo/language/ |archive-date=15 August 2004 |access-date=16 January 2012}}</ref> One involved a chimpanzee jokingly named [[Nim Chimpsky]] (in allusion to the theorist of language [[Noam Chomsky]]), trained by Herbert Terrace of [[Columbia University]]. Although his initial reports were quite positive, in November 1979, Terrace and his team, including psycholinguist [[Thomas Bever]], re-evaluated the videotapes of Nim with his trainers, analyzing them frame by frame for signs, as well as for exact context (what was happening both before and after Nim's signs). In the reanalysis, Terrace and Bever concluded that Nim's utterances could be explained merely as prompting on the part of the experimenters, as well as mistakes in reporting the data. "Much of the apes' behaviour is pure drill", he said. "Language still stands as an important definition of the human species." In this reversal, Terrace now argued Nim's use of ASL was not like human [[language acquisition]]. Nim never initiated conversations himself, rarely introduced new words, and mostly imitated what the humans did. More importantly, Nim's word strings varied in their ordering, suggesting that he was incapable of [[syntax]]. Nim's sentences also did not grow in length, unlike human children whose vocabulary and sentence length show a strong positive correlation.<ref name="Wynne 2007">{{cite web |author-link1=Clive Wynne |last=Wynne |first=C. |url=http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-10-31 |title=Aping language |work=eSkeptic |publisher=Skeptic |date=31 October 2007 |access-date=28 January 2011 |archive-date=16 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110416095851/http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-10-31/ |url-status=live }}</ref>