Abstract

This article evaluates experiments seeking to teach human language to various non-human primates and birds, with a focus on the agency, self-expression and resistance to their own predicament that became apparent in the experimental subjects once communication was genuinely attempted with them, and the anthropocentric framing in which it was received and devalued in the general perception. These experiments, the problematic assumptions behind them and the remarkable results deserve far more critical scientific and ethical analysis than they were given; the full scope of what these animals proved capable of is still underestimated.