Language & Animals

Project NIM

• Professor Herbert Terrace began Project Nim
• Project NIM was created to get insight on how language has evolved

The project would consist of having a baby chimp raised by human parents to see if the chimp could be taught to speak.

NIM was born in Oklahoma to his chimpanzee mother Carolyn. When NIM was 6 days old he was separated from his mother.

Stephanie Lafarge and her husband raised NIM as their own son.

Stephanie did not treat NIM as a scientific experiment but rather gave him too much freedom.

As a result of NIM not being "disciplined" enough, NIM was taken by Professor Herbert Terrace and a group of different teachers and was taught how to sign.

NIM learned many signs and was able to put together small sentences, he was even potty-trained.

As NIM got older he became more dominant and possessive of his female teachers, he even attacked one of them and bit her in the face.

NIM was growing in size and his "natural" animal was coming out and he became more aggressive.

Professor Herbert Terrace decided that it was best to take NIM back to Oklahoma to the primate facility where he was born.

His teachers were sad to leave NIM in what seemed like a prison. The chimps were locked in cages and often fought between them and the staff would use electrical rods to ensure that they behaved.

NIM's teachers were sad to leave him in what seemed like a prison. The chimps at the facility were locked in cages and often fought between themselves. It was also noted that the staff at the facility would use electrical rods to punish the chimps if they misbehaved.

Professor Herbert Terrace later published a book where he stated that he did not think that NIM could speak, but that he had learned how to manipulate situations in order to get rewards.

Bob worked at the facility and was able to interact and play with NIM. Bob states that he very much believes that NIM knew how to communicate.

In 1982 all of the chimps in the facilities were sold for medical research such as the testing of vaccines.

NIM was bought by a rancher and was left in solitary. As a result, NIM became even more aggressive.

Many years later Bob was able to visit NIM. NIM recognized Bob. The two were able to communicate using sign language and play as they did before.

The medical facility that owned the other chimps was closed, and Bob was able to rescue the other chimps and take them to the ranch.

At the age of 25, NIM died due to a heart attack. NIM died in a place where he was able to play with other chimps and also have human interactions.

After watching this documentary I have learned that chimpanzees have the ability to remember many things. It really surprised me that even after being in isolation NIM was still able to recognize and remember Bob.

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This documentary taught me that as humans we often see what we want to see. For example, Herbert Terrace only saw NIM as a science experiment and portrayed to have only wanted to prove that chimps could learn sign language vs actually caring about NIM. Herbert did not believe that NIM was actually communicating, but rather manipulating.

Bob on the other hand believed that NIM could communicate because as he stated in the documentary he did not care about grammar or how he was communicating but rather cared about building a relationship with NIM.

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I personally believe that NIM was able to learn how to communicate. According to Websters Dictionary, Communication is "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior".

NIM was able to communicate through sign and whether it was to ask for food or to ask to play he was still informing others what he wanted to do. Hebert argued that NIM could not communicate because he was only signing what he wanted. I think this can be compared to a child. A child when learning how to speak only communicates what they want or what they need but we do not say that they do not know how to communicate. In fact, when a child expresses these things we are proud that they are learning how to communicate.

I do not think that it is ethical to anthropomorphize chimps because although chimps can be taught to communicate, eventually their natural instinct in them will take over. NIM was raised by humans and even then as he got older he became aggressive and never really acted like a human. I think it is not ethical to raise a chimp as a human because they are not humans and in the case of NIM the animals end up abandoned because they become hard to control.

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As I was researching language, I learned that there have been many experiments done with animals and human language. One in particular was a study done that consisted of teaching baboons to recognize real English words from jumbled "fake" words. The baboons were able to recognize and each time distinguish the correct word. This proved that "a basic ability to recognize words as objects does not require complex linguistic understanding" (Grainger, Jonathan).

We know that animals communicate in their own "language". In Chapter 2 of The Study of Language, Yule states "...for any animal, the set of signals is used in communication is finite. Each variety of animal communication consists of a limited set of vocal or gestural forms". This showed me that animals already have the instinct and the need to communicate so if a chimp were to only socialize with humans it would need to learn how to communicate and convey its feelings and what it wants/needs. It is similar to that of a dog. My dog barks when he hears someone walking towards our front door, the only difference is that I cannot teach my dog how to use sign language so he uses other forms of communication.

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Resources

• “Project NIM.” Roadside Attractions, 2011.
• “Communication.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communication.

Resources Continued

• Grainger, Jonathan, et al. “Orthographic Processing in Baboons (Papio Papio).” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 13 Apr. 2012, science.sciencemag.org/content/336/6078/245.
• “Animals and Human Language.” The Study of Language, by George Yule, Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 15.