, LIE AND MAKE AUCTION POESIAS Barcelona. (EFE) .- The American Marriage Deborah and Roger S. Fouts has dedicated his life to fighting the idea that language is the "last bastion" of human uniqueness and the result has been more than 40 years of work with chimpanzees who have not only learned to communicate with sign language, but to lie and make poetry.
This pair of comparative psychologists from the Institute of Communication between humans and chimpanzees from Central Washington University, will retire next summer knowing that they have fulfilled their mission and have been able to "close the mouth" many scientists-including the linguist Noam Chomsky, which for decades denied this communicative ability, explained in an interview with Efe.
The Fouts were followers of the work begun in the sixties by another marriage, the psychologists also Allen and Beatrice Gardner-NASA who gave the chimpanzee Washoe after NASA dropped its investigation "chimponautas."
Washoe was introduced into a human environment where they only spoke the language of the deaf, a very different way of equipment, decades earlier, had tried to teach oral language to a chimpanzee in six years only could pronounce, and clearly no, four words: "mama" "dada", "cup" and "up", explains Roger simulating the sounds that came from the mouth of the primate.
The Gardner and his team, where Roger was a scholar, believed that the vocalizations of chimpanzees was involuntary, as the sound of a human if you hit your finger with a hammer. Bet to harness the natural movement of your hands (as used by individuals in the wild, with dialects) and Washoe decided to raise a deaf child with sign language U.S.
The primate learned more than a hundred signs communicated watching the team, so I could order food or scratching it, or to express complicated concepts like "I'm sad" or apologize.
But domestic life with Washoe became complicated. When the Gardners decided to transfer her to central Oklahoma, Roger would not leave her alone in that laboratory, where would embarrassed in cages next to a fellow whom he called "black bugs" - and managed to transfer her with him to Washington for further investigation, until the death of the chimpanzee in 2007.
In all these years marriage of researchers, which has passed through Barcelona invited by CosmoCaixa and Mona Foundation, saw how moved the Washoe language "family", Tatu, Dar and Loulis-a baby who learned the signs taken without human intervention-to levels surprising, coming to speak on their own while "reading" a magazine, because they are able to put names to what they see in the photos (food, drink, ice cream, shoes ...). "They talk as a family, if some argue, trying to make peace, when he removed a magazine Loulis Washoe, she cursed him and said 'dirty'," says Deborah, indicating that primates also know how to use the signs to lie .
Así se ve en una grabación en la que Dar hizo creer a Washoe que Loulis le había pegado y se tiró al suelo señalándole y pidiendo con signos a su madre un "abrazo", que además acabó regañando al supuesto agresor, una infantil malicia típica de Bart Simpson o de un delantero en el área pequeña.
Poesía para simios
Más sorprendente si cabe fue otra grabación en la que uno de los chimpancés repetía "llorar, llorar; rojo, rojo; silencio, silencio; divertido, divertido", an enigma for the team until a poet friend of the couple said that the signs of these words were similar and that it was an alliteration of sign language, a poetic?.
"There is evidence that they are able to learn the signs, sort and talk, have a syntax, they are even able to invent and transmit them," notes Roger Fouts. Although retiring from his job at the university to devote to her five grandchildren to see little, will recognize that going to see his other "grandchildren" chimpanzee. "We can not say that we have 68 years and we retire, we'll go see them but no longer every day," forward.
The Fouts are satisfied with the ban on bullfighting in Catalonia and trust that extends to the rest of Spain. "With our animal companions have had a relationship of exploitation, we have treated as slaves, now, though slowly, at least we are going the way of compassion," says scientist hopeful, critical of the deal still gives chimpanzees in laboratories EE.UU.La many couples regret that the spread of his amazing investigations have served to stop the mistreatment of these primates, but they trust that they reach school and cause a change of attitude in the younger generation. Cnn .-
