There was a competing theory that language was a technology that we developed and therefore had to learn rather than being innate.
We tortured a whole bunch of apes in the 70s & 80s trying to teach them language when it was always an exclusive ability of humans.
( I know that chimps could do sign language and stuff, but they never developed language; only able to express simple desires and emotions that they were well capable of without doing sign. And yes, Koko the gorilla’s ability was mostly a stage act. I’m sorry. )
Language isn’t entirely exclusive to humans. Some animals are linguistic geniuses and can pick up the basics. Kanzi the bonobo did a lot better than Koko and Nim. I don’t think the language acquisition device is a requirement to use language, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier and enables much greater complexity in language.
And of course, language is now an ability humans share with large language models, which do even better than Kanzi at using language.
There was a competing theory that language was a technology that we developed and therefore had to learn rather than being innate.
We tortured a whole bunch of apes in the 70s & 80s trying to teach them language when it was always an exclusive ability of humans.
( I know that chimps could do sign language and stuff, but they never developed language; only able to express simple desires and emotions that they were well capable of without doing sign. And yes, Koko the gorilla’s ability was mostly a stage act. I’m sorry. )
Language isn’t entirely exclusive to humans. Some animals are linguistic geniuses and can pick up the basics. Kanzi the bonobo did a lot better than Koko and Nim. I don’t think the language acquisition device is a requirement to use language, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier and enables much greater complexity in language.
And of course, language is now an ability humans share with large language models, which do even better than Kanzi at using language.