The Simian Tongue: The Long Debate about Animal Language

by Gregory Radick

In the early 1890s the theory of evolution gained an unexpected ally: the Edison phonograph. An amateur scientist used the new machine--one of the technological wonders of the age--to record monkey calls, play them back to the monkeys, and watch their reactions. From these soon-famous experiments he judged that he had discovered "the simian tongue," made up of words he was beginning to translate, and containing the rudiments from which human language...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226702243
• ISBN13: 9780226702247
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 578 Pages
• Weight: 2.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.3"