The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1888-06-07
Animals Have Language.

The intellectual superiority of civil
lied man over his savage brethren is
due to the creator multiplicity of his
objects of thought, says the Ge1t(emen'S
Magazine; and precisely so is it with
the intellectual superiority of the saw
age man over his simian ancestors.
The actions of all have the same aim,
VIZ: the supplying of the wants of
physical nature and the gratifying
of the desires aroused in the mind.
The old theory that speech was
altogether limited to the human race
has now to be given up once for all,
for such a statement can not stand
against. the scientific evidence brought
forward to oppose it from all quarters.
Language is but a product of re-
fiection and experience, and originated,
IN all probability, in interjection or the
instructive expression of the subjective
impressions derived from external ma
ture; and just as the reflective powers
OF the race We're developed and shown
more brilliantly as each stage in the
evolutionary march of intellect was
passed, so did language pass from the
simple monosyllabic cries of the lower
animals and savage men to the COM
pleX dialects of modern civilization;
and it is worthy of note that at the pres
ent day, or at least very recently, there
were races of savage men inhabiting
| the earth who possessed no proper lam
guage at all, and could not, on account
OF their manner of living. be placed on
a higher intellectual level than the
higher apes; while we have the au-
| thority of the leading philologists of
the day in support of the fact that the
monosyllablic cries Of some of the lower
human tribes are within the grasp of
the apes voice.
Travellers whose veracitv and ability
can not be impugned have described
long conferences held by monkeys,
sembly at length, fixing the attention
of all upon himself and quelling every
! disturbance by loud and harsh cry,
which was at once recognized and
obeyed by the multitude: and we need
no traveller to point out to us the many
notes of call and recognition possessed
| by birds ofall kinds, who thoroughly un-
derstand each others expressions, and,
moreover, are able to produce quite a
string of different notes consecutively
and without any hesitation. In fact,
the organ of voice in some of the lower
animals far exceeds in power that of
some tribes of the human family
The Euphonia musica of the East
Indies can perform the seven notes in
the scale; the chaflinch not only sings
real songs, but invents them, one of
| his songs containing as many as five
/ long strophes, while the songs of many
savage races of men never run to half
that length, and when Cook visited the
/ Fiji archipelago the native women
could only sing from Ia to mi. Asia
appears to have been the birth
place of stringed instruments, no
southern tribes ever having been dis
! covered using such musical appliances.
We see, therefore, a gradual improve
ment taking place in vocal apparatus
as we rise in the animal scale, which
results in speech and song, and, in
directly, in Instrumental music of vari-
oUs degrees: and we find fresh proof
that there is a wide difference between
the development Of civilized European
and the savage man as between that
OF the savage man and his brute an
cestry.