Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-01-10
DO MONKEYS rALKs
How the Smithsonian People Were Fools
by . Graphophone Letter.

| How the Smithsonian People Were Fooled
by q Graphophons Letter.
nR. r. L. GARNER of Roanoke, Va, IL con-
hvinced of the fact that monkeys have artic-
ulate speech like that OF human beings and
differing from the latter only in development.
He hss been experimenting of late with the
graz h0phone in this connection. securing q
''rpcord'' Of squesks and chickering's by one
monkey and subsequently grinding them out
through q trumpet for the 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
lexicon of the monkey language, which would
probably not be very voluminous, inasmuch as
the simian vocabulary does not appear to con-
tain more than about forty words. The doctor
thinks that he has already secured five Of them.
The other day DR.. Garner suffered q severe
pang in consequence of Misunderstanding in
cidental to a correspondence which he has been
conducting with the Smithsonian Institution
apropos of this monkey business He sent .
letter to DIR. Baker of the Smithsonian in the
usual business form in the shape of graphic
phone cylinder, beginning: Roanoke, Va.
My dear sir" &c. DR.. Baker put the cylinder
upon his own graphophone, knowing by the
superscription on the envelope that it was from
DR.. Garner. and turned on the electromotor
attached with much interest, anticipating some
communication Of Importance regarding mon
key talk.
Unfortunately he put on the cylinder wrong
end foremost, the result being that DIR. Garner s
letter came out backward. DR.. Baker up to
this time had been sceptic regarding the
theory Of the gentleman from Roanoke, but
upon hearing this rendering OF the communities
ton in question he supposed it was a monkey
record and became at once convinced that
there was more In the idea than he had origin
ally supposed. He even went SO far as to say
that there was an unmistakable semblance of
articulate speech in the record, although he
was unable to understand the remarks.
DR.. Garner was in town three DAYS ago and
enlightened DR.. Baker on the subject, after the
latter expert in zoology and his assistants had
ground of the supposed monkey talk in the
manner described some scores of times. He
explained that there was something in the idea
after all, as unintentionally adopted by his
friend, inasmuch in the case there was an il
lustration to be found of evolution backward
from the language of man to the speech of the
monkeys.
MONKEY AND CHILD.
DR.. Garner said to STAR reporter the other
day that in his opinion monkey talk was quite
u 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. 50, for
that matter. is the human infants. But it must
be remembered that the child has the superior
advantage 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 generations. When you hear an
ignorant person speak of instinct in animals
you ought to know that he means hereditary
and transmitted experience or practice. 1t
seems wonderful, under the circumstances,
that the more intelligent monkeys should have
SO many as forty words, approximately speak
ing. at their command.
In trying to find out what a monkey says
according to DR.. Garner, there is difficulty, to
begin with, from the very fact that the conso-
nant elements of its language are absent What
il has to say il expressed BY squeaks and other
sounds not to be comprehended off-hand. IN
doubleday, there is a monkey word for food; but
il is not to be expressed in type otherwise
than by phrasing 1t 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
conveyed otherwise,
THE MONKEYS RESPONSE.
Make that sound to a monkey and it will al
ways respond in some fashion, because it knows
that food of some sort is meant. The other
four words which DR.. Garner has thus far Sc
cured for his monkey lexicon are pain" ''sat-
isfaction." fear and menace" 1t is simply
a question. he thinks, of going on from this
point and discovering the other words of the
limited vocabulary OF our arboreal cousins.
1t seems, as he states the fact, that in the
monosyllabic vocabulary of monkeys there are
no negatives. Furthermore, emphasis is made
in no other fashion than by the repetition of
one utterance. Also. a single utterance slightly
varied means many things, accentuation trans
forming nouns into verbs. and so on. One OBJ
ject Of the investigation of this subject is to
discover whether monkey talk represents the
incipiency of human language as it exists today
or not One thing DIR. Garner thinks very GER
tain-nameiy, that the language of monkeys at
present is well developed as is the animal
itself. compared with civilized man.
lexicon of monkey words once obtained Dr.
Garner believes that il will be practicable to
establish intelligent communication with mon
keys, and as TO the possibilities to be secured
in this way of humanizing the anthropoid apes
in particular only the widest speculations can
be INDUCED.