Question

In the fifties, Keith and Cathy Hayes raised a young female chimpanzee in their home as if she were a human. They tried to teach her to speak. Viki never caught on, beyond forming the words mama, papa, up, and cup. What accounts for this lack of progress

The vocal tract is not suitable for speech in chimpanzees. In humans, a muscular tongue modulates the relative size of two chambers (front and back), forming vowels. Chimpanzees do not have that ideal right angle in their vocal tract, so the tongue has a difficult time forming two chambers.

Chimpanzees would have a real difficult time articulating most of the human consonants because for one thing, they lack an even ridge of teeth. Their large canine teeth would make it impossible to pronounce th-sounds, /f/, /v/, etc. Note that Viki basically can do bilabials (/m/, /p/) and velars (/k/ in cup).

Unlike humans, chimpanzees do not have a 'critical period' during which they acquire language. Their brains are simply not endowed with the readiness to acquire language - and no amount of learning can compensate for the lack of acquisition.

all of the above

Answer 1

Chimpanzees have ability to learn language,they can grasp sign language but not vocal language due to their physiological disability. They can't speak like human beings because they have thinner tongues and higher larynx or vocal box , that makes it difficult to pronounce the vowel sounds.

Solution: Option 1. The vocal tract is not suitable for speech in chimpanzee. In humans, a muscular tongue modulates the relative size of 2 Chambers ( front and back), forming vowels. Chimpanzees do not have ideal right angle in their vocal tract, show that 10 has a difficult time forming two chambers.