The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-02-15
slMIAN LEXICON.
Col. Garner Has Secured the
Monkey Vocabulary.


speech like that of human beings, and
differing from the latter only in develop
ment. He has been experimenting Of
late with the graphophone, securing
record of squeaks and chickering's by
ono monkey, and subsequently grinding
them out through trumpet for tho
benefit of another monkey, in order to
observe what remarks were elected
from the second monkey in response.
In this way he has hoped to gradually
make up a lexicon of tho monkey
language, which would probably not be
very voluminous, inasmuch as the
simian vocabulary does not appear to
contain more than about forty words
The colonel thinks that he has secured
five Of them.
The othsr day Col. Garner suffered
severe pang in consequence Of mis-
understanding incidental to a CORES
pondence which he has been conducting
with the Smithsonian Institution apro-
pos of this monkey business. He sent
letter to DR.. Baker of the Smithsonian
in the usual business form in the shape
of graphophone cylinder, beginning:
Roanoke, Va My Dear Sir" &c. DR..
Baker put the cylinder upon his own
graphophone. knowing by the super
scription on the envelope that it was
from Dr. Gardner, and turned on the
electromoter attached with much inter-
est, and anticipating some communica.
ton Of Importance regarding monkey
talk.
Unfortunately he put on tho cyclin-
der wrong end foremost the result be-
ing that Colonel Garnet's letter came
out backward. DIR. Baker up to this
time had been n skeptic regarding the
theory of the gentleman from Roanoke,
but upon hearing this rendering of tho
communication in question he supposed
it was monkey record and became at
once convinced that there was more in
the idea than he had originally sup
posed. He even went so far as to- say
that there was unmistal1able semblance
OF articulate speech in the record,
although he was unable to understand
the remarks.
Colonel Garner was in town three
days ago and enlightened DIR. Baker on
the subject, after the latter expert in
zoology and his assistants had ground
OIL the supposed money talk in the man
ner described some scores of times. He
explained that there was something in
the idea after all, as Internationally
adopted by his friend, inasmuch as in
the case there was an illustration to be
found of evolution backward from the
lung uHBc VI llldll 10 Monkeys
Col. Garner said to Star reporter the
other day that in his opinion monkey
talk was quite 4 highly developed
speech, considering the fact that the
monkey has no such facilities for the
development of language as are enjoyed
by human beings. AS he expressed it,
the speech of monkeys is almost wholly
vowel. So, for that matter, is the hui
man infants. But it must be rcmem-
bercd that the child has the superior adj
vantage Of education for its vocal organs
from the cradle, not to mention an
hereditary experience of the use of
those organs through ever so many gen
erations When you hear an ignorant
person speak of instinct" in animals,
you ought to know that he means hercd-
itary and transmitted experience or
practice. 1t seems wonderful under the
circumstances that the more intelli-
gent monkeys should have so many as
forty words, approximately speaking, at
their command.
In trying to find out what q monkey
says, according to Col. Garner, there is
difficulty, to begin with, from tho very
fact that the consonant elements of its
language are absent What it has to
say is expressed by squeaks and other
sounds not to be comprehendcd off-hand
Undoubtedly, there is q monkey word
for food, but it is not to be expressed in
type otherwise than by phrasing it in
this wise: "E-e-f-f sharpe" That
gives a notion of the word to any person
who knows music; it can hardly be con-
veyed otherwise.
Make that sound to monkey and it
will always respond in some fashion,
because it knows that food of some sort
is meant. The other four words which
Col Garner has thus far secured for hic
monkey lexicon are pain" 'satsfac-
tion," fear" and menace" 1t is
simply a question. he thinks, of going
from this point and discovering the other
words Of the vocabulary Of our arboreal
cousins.
1t seems, as he states the fact, that
in the monosyllable vocabulary OF
monkeys there are no negatives. Fur
thermore, emphasis is made in no other
fashion then by tho repetition of one
utterance. Also a single utterance
slightly varied means many things,
accumulation transforming nouns into
verbs, and so on. One object of
the investigation Of this subject is to
discover whether monkey talk repre-
sents tho incipiency of human Ian
guage as it exists to-day or not. One
thing Colonel Garner thinks very GER
tains-namcly, that the language of
monkeys at present is as we'll developed
as is the animal itself, compared with
civilized man.
lexicon of monkey works once OBJ
tanned, Colonel Garner believes that it
will be practicable to establish intelli-
gent communication with MONKEYS. and
as to the possibilities to be secured in
this way of humanizing the authropoid
apes in particular, only the widest