I'm a capuchin.

Orangutan. The boring and lazy one which can't do anything special except dance.
http://www.virginmedia.com/images/Ju...ok-gal-431.jpg

The kind that wishes it were human?

Why doesn't that monkey have a fucking job? It's just keeping the other monkeys down with stereotypes.

I'd just be some Gorilla that nobody gives a shit about. Maybe a Zoo Gorilla.

Just so we're all on the same page here, monkeys do not have a language, neither do dolphins, killer whales, tigers or anything else you fantasize about chatting up in your spare time.

What they have is a form of communication using audible signs for various survival purposes, language is a uniquely human thing that we evolved due to our needs to communicate and form a cohesive social structure with others outside our family group.

Rooks.

Grammar.

Language is far far more than the sum total of it's parts.

Gorillas seem to be capable of learning rudimentary language. They aren't at a place in evolution where they can speak it, but many have learned sign language.

What are you talking about WoF? The local Ravens chat me up all the time. Fancy British accents.

Sometimes I wish I could see the world in a million years. It's really a shame I won't be around.

Teken evolved quite a bit.
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I think the same as Darwin did, because, quite honestly, I'm not too fussed about it.

Cryogenic freezing!
Cryogenic freezing!

It's a strongly argued point but many (if not most) primate experts think that they haven't learnt language so much as learnt certain actions that receive positive reinforcement, much in the same way that a dog learns tricks.

So, a gorilla learns that if he signs 'Banana', he gets food and if he signs 'I love you', he gets a hug.

Many primate experts includes the ones from my university :p I actually did a module on Psycholinguistics last December.

Yeah but a series of 'tricks' done after one another is closer to a language than ordering your dog to sit. I mean, I don't think I can teach my dog an exact order to do tricks in an have him do it with one command or even out of his own initiative.

Then you're a pretty terrible dog trainer.

Surely that’s the same as an infant learning language. If they get it right, you can understand them and they get what they ask for. If they get it wrong, you punch them in the face until they learn not to dangle their fucking prepositions.

You’re going to be a great uncle, Nathan. :)

Yes, but language implies that they learn how to use the building blocks to express new thoughts, deeper and more complicated. The gorillas just used the building blocks to express the same, simple thoughts over and over again. Sometimes there would be a report of complex behaviour and philosophising, but that was generally in the mind of the interpreter rather than the animal.

I shall assume that you are saying this on the off-chance that someone believed me.

I'm great with tigers though.

But some of them have actually shown coherent thought, and an ability to make their language more complex. For instance, the gorilla Koko combined the signs for finger and bracelet to describe a ring. I'm not saying that they have developed language. I am merely saying that it's a pretty fucking good starting place.

ITT: Havoc doesn't actually understand what a dog is in any way.

My dog doesn't do tricks. She sits and farts.

Fucking french fucking bulldogs.

Corgis! That's where it's at.

I don't get the appeal. They're supposed to be really mean, aren't they?
At least it isn't English/American. Those fuckers are like the Jalopy's of dogs, made out of lots of flammable materials and with some random spikes here and there.

I've known them to be very defensive of their property, but I think it just depends on how they're raised. My Corgi can definately be domineering at times, but she's also very passionate and loving.

Yeah, but who determines that that's what they're doing? All those stories come from the handlers/interpreters, who have a vested interest in proving that language ability exists. Also an active imagination.

bloated fart beast with bug-eyes

Theoritally, it's simple. It has scientifically proven that the humna being descends from a single cell that appeared on Earth. Like, after the various phases of extinction, that very same cell evolved and most likely came to our ancestors (as so the scientist say they are), the Austrulopitecus (or however it is written). Still, it is also known based on these informations, that the human body does not stop evolving. Ah, yeah, a friend of mine also commentated that we're creating a new breed of humans: You've seen those 8-year-old kids that go to colleges immediately? Those are the new species of human beings (as so he said), but still, I do think that evolution is still happening.

It is also stated that the living beings adapt theirselves to the environment they are in, as the time flows. So, IMO, I think that we are creating our own evolution, be it via Nanotechnology, Bio-Engineering, or whatever we're doing to the environment.

Sorry to pick holes, but Science can't prove anything by definition.