Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1902-11-29
MONKEYS NOT GRAMMATICAL.
Garner's Fourteen Years In the Jun
giles of Africa.

Gamers Fourteen Years In the jun
giles Of Africa.
After fourteen years study Of the
thought and speech of the various di-
visions of the simian family, much Of
that time being spent in actual and
close association with them, Prof. r..
L. Garner is convinced that the mon
keys are a very narrow-minded and
ungrammatical race.
Prof. Garner has just returned from
his third sojourn in the jungles Of
Central Africa. Locked securely in a
great iron cage, ten feet square, with
bars so thick that the most powerful Of
wild animals could not reach him, eat
ing and sleeping and "phonographing"
and listening and chattering, the pro-
fessor spent weeks and months at a
time remote from human beings Of any
kind and strenuously endeavoring to
make the monkeys think that the con-
dition of affairs in the geological gar
dens was reversed for their benefit.
The professor made his first trip in
1892, remaining in the jungles for two
years. His second visit was in 1895,
and this time he has been away about
two years, but only six months Of that
period was spent in the jungles.
His cage was situated in the widest
part Of the French Congo. Great care
was exercised not to place it on the
elephant tracks, lest the big beasts
should become too curious, for the pro-
fessor's bars were not elephant proof.
The hardships undergone by the scien-
tist were terrible. Often he was with
out food and he had fever thirty-one
times in eleven months. Sickness and
privations reduced his weight almost
100 pounds, but he told a reporter for
the North American yesterday chat he
had regained his normal health.
"People must not expect too much
of the monkey language" said the
professor. Thought must exist before
the speech Is invented to express 1t,
and necessarily the monkeys range Of
thought Is limited.
Speech is only the oral expression
of thought, and so I was studying the
simian thoughts as well as language.
For purposes Of comparison separ-
ate intelligence into concepts or groups
Of thought. To the human perception
there are something like one hundred
and twenty-five concepts. To the mon
key conception there are seven. That
shows the difference between the mon
key intellect and the human intellect
and should also convey some idea OF
the extremely crude condition Of their
language"
Prof. Garner says that the monkeys
are not at all grammatical. Their
words are not joined in phrases and
sentences, but they are sticklers on pro-
nunciation. You never hear a CHM
panzee dropping his "r's" or singing
his "h's" for instance. The language
Is Volapuk among that species OF mon
key, but there Is no general language
for the different species or for the mon
keys and the birds or the leopards or
the snakes.
During his last visit, Prof. Garner
confined his attentions almost entirely
to the chimpanzee, which, he says, Is
next to man in point Of reasoning pow
er. He did not have much luck with
the gorilla. The gorilla, he says, Is the
Indian Of the jungle. He Is extremely
taciturn and stoical, and never speaks
unless it is absolutely necessary. and
then as IL it were a great effort. For
this reason the professor had little or
no conversation with them.
If a chimpanzee wants to say:
Come, let us go unto the river and
drink" he doesn't say it in so many
words, but he merely gives peculiar
grunt which means water, thirst, and
come along If you want to. II he de-
sires to remark to neighbor that 1t Is
dinner time, he gives another grunt,
which the professor has registered IN
his phonograph, and which means that
he is about to begin search for
cocoanut, or an ant or anything else
that will allay the pangs Of hunger.
The chimpanzee Is very polite
monkey. If you give him something he
Is particularly anxious to get he Will
calculate "Nwa" pronounced short a.
with a French accent, although the