Everything About PrimatePoetics You Always Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Ask.
- Posted: 16.May.2008.
Can you explain PrimatePoetics in one sentence?
Great apes using human language are creating a new literature.
Which ape novels can you recommend?
That is the typical dumbwitted misapprehension we are hoping to combat. There is the stock image of a barbaric horde of chimps banging away at random on typewriters in some library basement. And there is the stock image of the learned gorilla discussing prosody with his peers. Reality, as always, is to be found in the space between these two ridiculous images. The fact is: all great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans) can be taught some derivative form of non-verbal human language; be it sign language, the Yerkish system of word-lexigrams or some other system. It has taken a few decades before researchers learned how to teach apes, but now they know how to do it the results have been spectacular. Those who are still saying that apes can't have language should get up to speed with recent developments. For us the crucial point is this: our language once passed on to a different kind of mind becomes a new language. And a new language obviously means the start of a new literature.
Is PrimatePoetics real? Or is it a prank? Or are you just extremely gullible?
We are not gullible: science knows that all apes have language, even dialects, in the wild, and that the great apes have more of it. The biological features that enable us to be creatures of language pre-date our species. One implication of this is that in discovering the language of the great apes as a literature of interest in its own right, we are actually rediscovering a long lost undercurrent part of our own literature.
Your experience of this language is indirect and second-hand. What do you hope to contribute to this field what the scientists with the intimate knowledge of real apes cannot?
It is true that we are far removed from the fire and must rely on the documentation provided by the various scientists running these projects. What we can add is a different, freer perspective. Our viewpoint will make us see things others can't. But PrimatePoetics also traces the impact ape language will have on human language. The many inventive names given to new objects by gorilla Koko are all perfect material for t-shirts and band names. PrimatePoetics also includes material written by humans for apes.
You are aware of the fact that many people, from religious zealots to ground breaking scientists have severe doubts about all efforts wasted on teaching language to apes? Language after all is what separates us from the beasts.
Language is not a yes-or-no proposition, language is a continuum. It is better to see a little than to be blind. Human language, and the human capacity for language, is probably more sophisticated than what we find elsewhere in nature. Every experiment compares the language ability of apes with that of a human toddler. But you must keep in mind that we are setting the standard for the animal to live up to. This is unfair to the ape. It is unfair to us as well as it prevents us from seeing what could be done and what might still happen. A teacher without confidence is his or her pupil will teach nothing.
Is literature not a too big a word to describe what your apes are producing?
All literature starts with the first known examples of its use, and this means that the inane dialogues about M&M's and faeces we have included in our “PrimatePoetics is here” pamphlet are to be regarded as part of primate literature. We do expect language-apes to move forward but it will take time.
Are you saying that for the moment everything these apes are saying is poetry?
We are using the term poetry in a special sense. Poetry is a state of language in which we can't be sure to recognize it if we see it. Notice that our definition rejects as poetry most of the stuff written in broken lines which passes for poetry today. The very fact that there is still furious debate about the very existence of ape language shows that the language is still in its poetic phase. Once everybody agrees that what Kanzi, Washoe and Panbanisha are producing can only be language, the PrimatePoetic ceases to be.
You argue that PrimatePoetics is the greatest event in literature in 4000 years. How do you substantiate this mad claim?
The mythical date given for the discovery of written Chinese in the patterns of is 2000 BC. As Chinese is the oldest written language in use this seemed a good starting point. All radical poetic theories are theories about where a new mind, a new intelligence, a new sentience can be found where before there was thought to be only chaos. Never before PrimatePoetics has a non-human literature been established and this is why this work is revolutionary enough to warrant such a bold claim.
What about the gibbon? Are you including them in your studies or not.
We mention the gibbon sing-song to suggest an alternative approach to what language can be. Our first assumption is to take language as a means to share information, but language without information can still be meaningful. What appears trivial or nonsensical on the cognitive level can be extremely meaningful on the emotional level. The special status of poetry is partly based on the poem being half music and half word. Poetry is meant to be read as much as it is meant to be experienced and performed. The songs of the gibbon are locked into poetry, the poetry of the great apes has the potential to outgrow poetry.
Your first publication, a small booklet called "PrimatePoetics is Here", maps the subject. What's next?
PrimatePoetics was born out of a real fondness for the outsider charm of their language and this we wanted to share. At the moment we are still amused spectators but having surveyed the territory we now know what to move forward. We will work with the lexigrams, we will seek out the apes and the people who have met them or even worked with them. We will translate from human literature into Yerkish. We are encouraging all budding PrimatePoetic enthusiasts to get in touch.
- Posted: 16.May.2008.
Can you explain PrimatePoetics in one sentence?
Great apes using human language are creating a new literature.
Which ape novels can you recommend?
That is the typical dumbwitted misapprehension we are hoping to combat. There is the stock image of a barbaric horde of chimps banging away at random on typewriters in some library basement. And there is the stock image of the learned gorilla discussing prosody with his peers. Reality, as always, is to be found in the space between these two ridiculous images. The fact is: all great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans) can be taught some derivative form of non-verbal human language; be it sign language, the Yerkish system of word-lexigrams or some other system. It has taken a few decades before researchers learned how to teach apes, but now they know how to do it the results have been spectacular. Those who are still saying that apes can't have language should get up to speed with recent developments. For us the crucial point is this: our language once passed on to a different kind of mind becomes a new language. And a new language obviously means the start of a new literature.
Is PrimatePoetics real? Or is it a prank? Or are you just extremely gullible?
We are not gullible: science knows that all apes have language, even dialects, in the wild, and that the great apes have more of it. The biological features that enable us to be creatures of language pre-date our species. One implication of this is that in discovering the language of the great apes as a literature of interest in its own right, we are actually rediscovering a long lost undercurrent part of our own literature.
Your experience of this language is indirect and second-hand. What do you hope to contribute to this field what the scientists with the intimate knowledge of real apes cannot?
It is true that we are far removed from the fire and must rely on the documentation provided by the various scientists running these projects. What we can add is a different, freer perspective. Our viewpoint will make us see things others can't. But PrimatePoetics also traces the impact ape language will have on human language. The many inventive names given to new objects by gorilla Koko are all perfect material for t-shirts and band names. PrimatePoetics also includes material written by humans for apes.
You are aware of the fact that many people, from religious zealots to ground breaking scientists have severe doubts about all efforts wasted on teaching language to apes? Language after all is what separates us from the beasts.
Language is not a yes-or-no proposition, language is a continuum. It is better to see a little than to be blind. Human language, and the human capacity for language, is probably more sophisticated than what we find elsewhere in nature. Every experiment compares the language ability of apes with that of a human toddler. But you must keep in mind that we are setting the standard for the animal to live up to. This is unfair to the ape. It is unfair to us as well as it prevents us from seeing what could be done and what might still happen. A teacher without confidence is his or her pupil will teach nothing.
Is literature not a too big a word to describe what your apes are producing?
All literature starts with the first known examples of its use, and this means that the inane dialogues about M&M's and faeces we have included in our “PrimatePoetics is here” pamphlet are to be regarded as part of primate literature. We do expect language-apes to move forward but it will take time.
Are you saying that for the moment everything these apes are saying is poetry?
We are using the term poetry in a special sense. Poetry is a state of language in which we can't be sure to recognize it if we see it. Notice that our definition rejects as poetry most of the stuff written in broken lines which passes for poetry today. The very fact that there is still furious debate about the very existence of ape language shows that the language is still in its poetic phase. Once everybody agrees that what Kanzi, Washoe and Panbanisha are producing can only be language, the PrimatePoetic ceases to be.
You argue that PrimatePoetics is the greatest event in literature in 4000 years. How do you substantiate this mad claim?
The mythical date given for the discovery of written Chinese in the patterns of is 2000 BC. As Chinese is the oldest written language in use this seemed a good starting point. All radical poetic theories are theories about where a new mind, a new intelligence, a new sentience can be found where before there was thought to be only chaos. Never before PrimatePoetics has a non-human literature been established and this is why this work is revolutionary enough to warrant such a bold claim.
What about the gibbon? Are you including them in your studies or not.
We mention the gibbon sing-song to suggest an alternative approach to what language can be. Our first assumption is to take language as a means to share information, but language without information can still be meaningful. What appears trivial or nonsensical on the cognitive level can be extremely meaningful on the emotional level. The special status of poetry is partly based on the poem being half music and half word. Poetry is meant to be read as much as it is meant to be experienced and performed. The songs of the gibbon are locked into poetry, the poetry of the great apes has the potential to outgrow poetry.
Your first publication, a small booklet called "PrimatePoetics is Here", maps the subject. What's next?
PrimatePoetics was born out of a real fondness for the outsider charm of their language and this we wanted to share. At the moment we are still amused spectators but having surveyed the territory we now know what to move forward. We will work with the lexigrams, we will seek out the apes and the people who have met them or even worked with them. We will translate from human literature into Yerkish. We are encouraging all budding PrimatePoetic enthusiasts to get in touch.
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