Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-06-28
THE MONKEY LANGUAGE.
f>'fessor Gamers Discovery Sets HUI
morist to Thinking and Guessing.

fs'fessor Gamers Discovery Sets HUI
morist to Thinking and Guessing.
NO man-not even a Macaulay, a Dr.
johnson or Chauncey Depew-may longer
monopoliZe speech. Professor Garner has
discovered that monkeys have language.
The phonograph, which preserves the
voice Of Gladstone and the song of Patti.
has also recorded the words of the Capu-
chin monkey and the Barbary ape. In the
Madison Square garden recently there were
presented two singular spectacles: In one
part of the building two human beings be-
labOred each other with boxing gloves,
while in another a monkey spoke to the
Nineteenth Century club through a pho
nograph. The exhibition of muscle and
agility was given by the human beings. 1t
was the monkey that did the thinking
If monkeys have language is it not prob
able that different nationalities and tribes
of monkeys have different languages? Is
1t likely that monkey from Dahomey
tsaTi2nld be able to Understand the ''lins2"
of monkey from Timbuctoof Ali that
The monkey from Ttmbuctoo said would
be Greek to the monkey from Dahomey
On the other hand, the discourse of the
monkey from Dahomey would be no more
bhan Chinese to the monkey from Timbuc-
Zoo.
At what dim time on the banks of the
Nile or in the garden of Timbuctoo or on
the slopes of kilima-N jaro did the monkey
language begin? Was there ever any tree
Of Babel down which the monkeys trooped
in confusion?
Is there any simian Sanscrit from which
are derived the multitude of monkey Ian
guages? Has any of the various simian
tongues been enriched by the infusion of
foreign monkey words? Have the simian
languages had life ard growth and
phonetic changer Does the speech of the
monkeys whose pictures are in the temples
of Egypt resemble the speech of contem-
porary monkeys on the Congo, as Latin
resembles the modern Romance Ian
guages? Are there any dead monkey Ian
guages?
Is rude dialect spoken in the remote
aackwoods districts-the monkey Oshkosh
or the monkey Kalamazoo-and a purer
speech in the monkey centers of popula-
tipn? Do the monkeys ON the Congo speak
The more polished and elegant language
the Partisan and Tuscan of the simian
speech-while the monkey in the back
woods speaks patois2
Perhaps the more simple monkey Ian
guages are monosyllabic like Chinese, and
the more highly developed are polysylla.
bic, like English, It is possible that some
OF the more complex simian Languages
have eight or ten lenses, including the
second pluperfect. 1t may be that the
young monkeys parse and conjugate while
pursuing some complicated monkey Ian
guage for mental drill
->Cisn people learn the monkey languages
and thus draw nearer to their kin across
the scar We believe that they can. Pro
fess,r Garner already speaks the Capuchir
monkey language with facility, though
his vocabulary is not large. And it mus
be pleasant surprise to a Central Parl
monkey to find a solitary citizen of til,
great republic learned enough to converts
with him.
Some day not few cultivated and re
fined people will know some simian Ian
guage and be able to talk with monkeys
In that happy day people can invite an APP
to breakfast, ascertain his point of view
his philosophy of life, and DISCUSS witt
him his social, political and aesthetic
theories.-L. Fl. Topper in New Yorl
Journal