Language of the Apes

Apes in the wild have language and it takes only a small leap of imagination to try to give them a second, human, language. For over forty years researchers have been trying to do this with increasingly good results. Our language, when it is passed on to a different species, becomes a new language. PrimatePoetics is born from the realization that this language should be appreciated in its own right, as the greatest revolution in literature since the invention of written Chinese 4000 years ago. PrimatePoetics is Here is the first primer to this new field. It explains where it comes from, it gives an overview of the field on an ape-by-ape basis and closes with an extensive anthology of relevant scientific and artistic sources. But most of all PrimatePoetics is Here hopes to give a feel for the outsider charm of the language of the apes.

Silencing the Voices >>