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The Yerkish Language. from Operational Methodology to Chimpanzee Communication

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The Yerkish Language. from Operational Methodology to Chimpanzee Communication historical; cognitive-psychological radical constructivism EMPIRICAL The Yerkish Language. From Operational Methodology to Chimpanzee Communication Marco Bettoni A Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland) <[email protected]> Origins of Yerkish – Purpose: Yerkish is an artificial language created in 1971 for the specific purpose of explor- ing the linguistic potential of nonhuman primates. The aim of this paper is to remind the The LANA project research community of some important issues and concepts related to Yerkish that seem One day in the fall of 1970 Ray Carpenter, one to have been forgotten or appear to be distorted. These are, particularly, its success, its of the fathers of primatology in the United promising aspects for future research and last but not least that it was Ernst von Glaser- States, came to the almost regular Saturday sfeld who invented Yerkish: he coined the term “lexigrams,” created the first 120 of them golf meeting with von Glaserfeld bringing and designed the grammar that regulated their combination. Design: The first part of with him an intriguing idea: The Yerkes this paper begins with a short outline of the context in which the Yerkish language origi- National Primate Research Center in nated: the original LANA project. It continues by presenting the language itself in more Atlanta1 (Georgia), the first and foremost detail: first, its design, focusing on its “lexigrams” and its “correlational” grammar (the institute of primate research in the USA, was connective functions or “correlators” and the combinations of lexigrams, or “correla- planning to investigate the possibility of tions”), and then its use by the chimpanzee Lana in formulating sentences. The second part communication between humans and great gives a brief introduction to the foundation of Yerkish in Silvio Ceccato’s Operational apes via a computer by means of a visual lan- Methodology, particularly his idea of the correlational structure of thought and concludes guage. The great apes (gorillas, orangutans, with the main insights that can be derived from the Yerkish experiment seen in the light chimpanzees) would probably never learn a of Operational Methodology. Findings: Lana’s success in language learning and the success spoken language, Carpenter said, but they of Yerkish during the past decades are probably due to the characteristics of Yerkish, par- were quick and clever with their fingers and ticularly its foundation in operational methodology. The operation of correlation could be Alan and Beatrice Gardner had successfully what constitutes thinking in a chimpanzee and an attentional system could be what deliv- taught ASL (the American Sign Language ers the mental content that correlation assembles into triads and networks. used by deaf people) to a chimpanzee called Research implications: Since no other assessment or explanation of Lana’s performances Washoe.2 has considered these foundational issues (findings), a new research project or program Despite impressive results in teaching sign should validate the above-mentioned hypotheses, particularly the correlational structure language to the great apes, in those years as of chimpanzee thinking. well as during the following two decades, lin- Keywords: Yerkish, artificial language, correlational grammar, operational methodology, guists and psychologists – who wanted to Silvio Ceccato, machine translation, chimpanzee communication. believe with Chomsky that language was a human prerogative – doubted that “an ape can truly create a sentence” (Terrace et al. an ape also useful for understanding some of 1979, p. 891) and claimed that “they show no Introduction the abilities involved in human language and unequivocal evidence of mastering the conver- Could an ape participate in a chat session vice-versa? How can these questions be sational semantics or syntactic organization of over the Internet? At first sight the question answered in a scientific manner? language” (Terrace et al. 1979, p. 901). They may seem silly, but I claim that it could – at Today science seems to have overcome the also said that sign language did not have a least in part – be taken seriously and in this old behaviourist stimulus–response bond and proper syntax and therefore was not really a paper I will try to show why. To begin with, finds itself in a somewhat better position to try language. Moreover they suggested that the let us step back a little and have a look at to answer this and related questions. But about Gardners were like parents with a baby: they some questions that the scientific commu- 40 years ago, when Ernst von Glasersfeld cre- saw and heard demonstrations of linguistic nity would probably accept as more “sound.” ated “Yerkish” – an artificial language for use capabilities that no one else could see or hear. Is language no longer the exclusive domain by apes in computer-mediated communica- The Yerkes Center plan was to build a of man? Can an ape create a sentence? Are tion (CMC) with machines and humans – the communication system with a simplified lan- explanations of language learning and use by situation was much more uncomfortable. guage, a keyboard, and a small computer to 32 Constructivist Foundations 2007, vol. 2, nos. 2–3 http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/ historical; cognitive-psychological radical constructivism EMPIRICAL explore computer-mediated communication Beside providing food and drink, the com- between humans and apes. The computer puter could respond to correctly formulated would record everything the ape typed on the requests by playing taped music or sounds, keyboard and there would be no subjective projecting movies and slides as well as open- bias as to what the ape had or had not typed. ing and shutting the above-mentioned win- This plan seemed a great idea to von Glasers- dow. Above the keyboard was a sturdy hori- feld and when Carpenter asked him if he zontal bar that Lana had to hang on to in order would like to design the special language and to switch on the system (Fig. 1). the computer system for handling it, he immediately accepted. In his turn, von Gla- sersfeld recommended that his long-term The Yerkish language research partner Pier Paolo Pisani3, a compu- ter specialist, also join the effort. Language as a communicatory system has After a number of conferences among the three indispensable characteristics (Glasers- members of the project team, in early winter feld 1977a, p. 66): a) it has a set, or lexicon, of 1970 a proposal was submitted to the artificial signs; b) it has a set of rules, or gram- National Institute of Health requesting funds mar, that governs the creation of sentences as for a 4-year period. In spring 1971 the grant sequences of lexical entries; c) its signs are was awarded (NIH grants HD-060164and used as symbols (Glasersfeld 1974). RR-00165). The team immediately began The lexicon of Yerkish was developed by designing and building the system and a few von Glasersfeld starting from a list of things weeks later everyone was introduced to the that would presumably interest a young subject of the research, a young female chim- chimpanzee (and the experimenters) and panzee called Lana (born October 7, 1970).5 could be available in the project. The words of In the first phase of the project a Plexiglas this preliminary vocabulary were about 150, cubicle the size of a small room was built on but in the beginning only 25 were put on the to an existing wall that had a window to the first panel of keys. Each key had an abstract outside of the Yerkes Center. One of the Plexi- design representing not a letter but the “word- Figure 1: Lana at the lexigram board. glas walls was dedicated to the keyboard, a design” for a single concept. Ernst von Gla- Photo Ernst von Glasersfeld. square array unit of initially 5x5 keys, with sersfeld coined for these word-designs the space for other units to be added as Lana got name “lexigrams” and created them by means more proficient. By sequentially pressing the of non-representational design elements to characteristics like being able to eat, drink, keys of the keyboard, code signals standing for emphasize their symbol-character (Fig. 2) groom, tickle, give things or make things hap- words were sent to the computer, which con- and to prevent critical linguists from saying pen were collected in the lexigram class tained the vocabulary and the grammar of that Lana recognized them just because they “autonomous actor” and divided into four Yerkish, the automatic parser for checking the were familiar pictures. Whenever Lana sub-groups: “familiar primates” (lexigram correctness of sentences, and the rules for pressed keys the respective lexigrams were Lana and lexigrams for the first names of activating a dispenser in response to requests projected on to a row of small windows above technicians and experimenters, like Tim or that Lana was to formulate in Yerkish word the keyboard, one after the other from left to Shelley), “unfamiliar primates” (lexigram vis- symbols (Glasersfeld 1995, p. 11). The com- right. This helped Lana to see how far along itor), “nonprimates” (lexigram roach) and puter itself and the terminal with a keyboard she was in typing the sentence – seven was the “inanimate actor” (lexigram machine). Sev- for the researchers were placed just outside maximum length of a sentence. Moreover eral lexigrams were assigned to classes desig- the room: from here the experimenters could projecting the lexigrams in this row was used nating relational concepts like the class “par- interact with Lana by typing sentences that to flash messages from the human trainers to titive proposition” (lexigram of), the class were displayed above her keyboard and they Lana and to make conversations possible. “semantic indicator” (lexigram name-of) and could also see how she was behaving during After compiling the lexicon of Yerkish, the the class “attributive marker” (lexigram the computer-mediated communication ses- lexical items were divided into classes.
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