Talk:Nim Chimpsky

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Upbringing

An article in a sydney train newspaper referred to this case. It named the woman who raised Nim and said she had breast fed Nim. It said she gave him alcohol to drink and cannabis to smoke. Are there any references to support these allegations? DDB (talk) 12:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

In the movie "Project Nim", they do confirm all of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.209.151.46 (talk) 04:28, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Any relation?

Can anyone enlighten me as to the ape's relation to Noam Chomsky? Atheistrabbi 6 July 2005 15:25 (UTC)

So far as I know, the the name was chosen as a joke on the part of Herb Terrace, at the expense of Chomsky because of the latter's ideological commitment to the impossibility of a non-human animal acquiring language. seglea 6 July 2005 19:41 (UTC)

Multiple articles on great ape language

This article is one of at least 16 articles on Wikipedia primarily about the fascinating but controversial subject of Great ape language. These articles have been created independently and contain much interesting but uncoordinated information, varying levels of NPOV, and differences in categorization, stubbing, and references. Those of us working on them should explore better coordinating our efforts so as to share the best we have created and avoid unnecessary duplication. I have somewhat arbitrarily put the list of 16 articles on Talk:Great ape language and would encourage us to informally coordinate efforts there. Martinp 18:02, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Pepperberg on Parrots

If the text insists on mentioning operant conditioning on pigeons, the article should at least provide a link or xref to Irene Pepperberg's recent work with parrots.

"Retirement" section needs cites

This "strong indication" remark at the end of this section needs a cite:

The fact that Nim's owners were going to discard the animal to a research lab is a strong indication of the level of nurturing that Nim was given during Terrace's studies which helps to explain the animal's lack of development in comparison to more successful examples.

Otherwise it just looks like a parting shot by someone who disagrees with the research. Touchstone 16:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree it needs citation, but the comment does represent the opinion of numerous linguists. The thing is to find a written opinion and cite it. Let's leave it there for now. I'll see if I can get the citation or a citation of something similar. Lisapollison 03:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Nim was never "owned" by Herb Terrace. And his possible disposal to a medical research center came several years after Project Nim had ended. Finally, part of the reason that this possible relocation didn't happen was because Terrace, among others, campaigned against it. Consequently the potential relocation is completely uninformative with regards to "the level of nurturing that Nim was given during Terrace's studies" - the opinion of "numerous [unnamed] linguists" notwithstanding. See Eugene Linden, Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments, New York: Times Books, 1986. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.146.42 (talk) 17:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Linden also says that Terrace was aware of the plans to sell Nim to the research lab for many months before it actually happened, and only became galvanized to action when a media outcry had already been raised. Though I do agree that Nim was being sold because he was very costly to take care of and funding to Terrace had been cut off, not because of any nurturing problems. In fact, Nim was very well taken care of while a scientific subject. Complaints about how he was brought up have more to do with the fact that he had 60 teachers in less than 4 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.169.62.139 (talk) 05:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Quotes

Amazing that the most quotes on wikipedia is given to a monkey. My favorite is "Llama eat llama duck". It's a llama-eat-llama-duck world out there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.47.54.226 (talk) 23:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not particularly amazing actually. Most people mentioned on wikipedia cannot be given a full quotation of everything that they've said. Nim Chimpsky however was carefully studied and monitored throughout his progress. Nearly everything he ever signed was recorded. In particular, one and two word quotes would likely be excessive, and show little evidence of a lack of grammatical skill, but the three and four word quotes show particularly key evidence of a lack of innate grammar in Chimpanzees that is automatically available to the vast majority of humans. The repetative nature of the quotes, the lack of any particular ordering, and inconsistent use of any language structures except for atomic signs with relationship expressed solely by association... Nim Chimpsky's skills at language are surpassed in most cases simply by a four year old, and without any necessary forced study. --Puellanivis 19:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Source for the Quotes?

Considering that we had hoax quotes from Nim Chimpsky... is there any possible way that we would be able to substantiant and support these quotes? I believe I spotted the "llama" quotes before and found them to be dubious, but without any real background or familiarity of the issue, it's not something that I felt was appropriate for me to alter. --Puellanivis 19:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Should just delete this section. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. — Omegatron 23:46, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is really the most useful information in the world, but it does make up part of the Science (1979) paper on Nim. If it's good enough for Science, why isn't it good enough for wikipedia? One thing that might be nice to do, though, is to make it into columns. There's no need for this to take up that much space. BTW, you can find the original paper here Nim Chimpsky Science paper. I think the quotes that are currently on the page are correct (I didn't see any llama quotes). In addition, reading the original article explains the apparent contradiction noted below, in terms of longest quotation (purely number of words) and longest "sentence" which does not count repeated words in the same way. Edhubbard 18:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The longest quote

Article is self-contradictory. In the body of the article: "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you", but in the quotes list "Orange eat me orange orange me eat orange eat orange me me me me orange eat orange orange me eat eat orange me eat me" - which is correct? --24.86.195.69 03:24, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Does that sentence, like, have a grammatical structure of any kind? Can Nim Chimpsky's sentences, or the sentences of any non-human primate for that matter, be said to have grammars?

Nim Chimpskey's sentence seems like it's just about repeating the words "give," "orange," "me," and "eat" over and over again until the listener gets the point; because there is no grammar, his sentences are not comparable to those human language. Cornince (talk) 09:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Consistency and theory

Too many quotes from Nim for such a slenderly theorized article! As a reader familiar with some of these controversies but far from expert, I found the article inconsistent, poorly or hastily written and, as stated above, self-contradictory. Would love to see some elucidations. I tried to clean up the grammar and assertions somewhat but the article should be shorter, imo, and more concise, and with better references as suggested by others. For an example of lack of clarity, it is not at all clear whether the article is on the one hand asserting that Nim and Washoe were raised in isolation and therefore failed to meet the standards of "educators" as cited or were raised in warm loving family environments...

Also the writer is apparently insufficiently familiar with Chomsky and generative grammar. Actio (talk) 18:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Sex

the first few paragraphas refer to the animal nim chimpsky alternately as female and then male. Unless this is a 'bi-gender' animal- which it isn't since no such thing actually exists, then the article is miswritten. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.233.180 (talk) 02:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Cannot find it. If the confusion was there, it's gone now. Nim (a male) is compared with Washoe (a female). Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 16:04, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

1977 attack and subsequent ending of experiment

There is no mention of this pivotal fact of the Nim Chimpsky story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.63.126.21 (talk) 23:03, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Chimpsky

I have seen the documentary Project Nim. It contains interviews with most of the people that were involved in this project. They all call the ape Nim, not Nim Chimpsky. The article says that Nim Chimpsky is a pun on Noam Chomsky. Was Chimpsky actually adopted as his real name. Who invented this name, and how widely was it spread. As far as I can see his real name is Nim, and this article should be renamed as such. Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 17:16, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I have seen it too. As I remember towards the end of the documentary he gets the surname Chimpsky. It was when he got a lawyer and there was a court case. (To the best of my memory). Groeten van Lova Falk talk 21:20, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

'Terrace et al' say his full name was Neam Chimpsky, or Nim for short. I guess it's possible that Neam is a misprint for Noam. Tlhslobus (talk) 03:39, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

LEMSIP

i too am watching this documentary as i write on BBC three, and its up to the part that shows that Nim in the place where they perform vaccine tests on chimps. I just wanyed to say that this is disgusting. While i understand the need to test vaccines before they brought to the open market. I think that they should be tested on the species they are intended to heal, human. There are plenty of people out there who would probably be more than willing to go through these tests, even if the outcome is fatal. People whos lives are coming to an end be it through disease, or suicide for example. People may say that thats a no no, because its not humane, but whats more humane? using animals that dont have a choice? or using a person who decided to be a part of these experiments willingly knowing that they could die? I think that the wiki should elaborate a heck of a lot more about Nims time after the experiment. This poor guy had been from pillar to post, if we had treated a person this way, there would be a heck of a shit storm, but why not with this animal. Well there it is, because we see it as an animal. but do animals not feel emotions like pain either? Nims story is very tragic, and this wiki page in no way reflects that. its supposed to be about who he was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by D0S81 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

According to our Edit History, the above unsigned paragraph was added by User:DOS81 on 20 January 2014, who is fairly new to Wikipedia, having made 5 contributions in 13 months. So welcome, DOS81. Please note that it is recommended that your sign you contributions to Talk pages, by adding 4 tildas (a sequence of 4 of the the ~ character). I think that you are right that there needs to be more about his life after the experiment. But Wikipedia is a volunteer organisation, so if something is not being done and you feel strongly about it, you should perhaps think about trying to do it yourself, or alternatively tell us that you feel you don't have the time (and/or the experience and/or whatever) to do it. Otherwise your post may actually work as a disincentive to others to do it, on the assumption that the hard work can safely be left to you. To get things started, arguably all you have to do is write down a summary of your recollection of what the documentary said in as balanced a way as you can (preferably after reading WP:BLP and WP:NPOV), and then cite the documentary as your source. (I have no plans to do it myself, as I think in theory it ought to be done, but it's much too far down my list of priorities) Tlhslobus (talk) 17:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Chomsky

I removed the references to Chomsky and the alleged purpose of the study from the lead paragraph as the statement did not seem to be supported by the cited source. However I did not originally realize that the Pdf file that we are offered gives negative search results for words that are in fact present (presumably because it's some kind of image file rather than a text file). In fact, assuming I haven't missed any other instances, Chomsky seems to be cited once, in the document's reference 15, for a 1965 publication. That reference 15 also includes 3 other works by other authors, 2 of which are earlier than Chomsky's work, being from 1957 and 1964. I still see no support in this document for the statement that the study was "to see if he could refute Noam Chomsky's thesis that language is inherent only in humans." However that statement does appear to be supported by the Roger Fouts quote near the start of the next section, but I don't know how reliable that is, and it's now a dead link. If somebody else is satisfied that the Fouts quote is reliable in this regard, they can presumably restore the statement to the lead and add a reference to Fouts, preferably a live one. Tlhslobus (talk) 04:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

On reflection, I've added back Chomsky, but quoting and citing Fouts. Hopefully a live link will be found eventually.Tlhslobus (talk) 06:42, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Nim Chimpsky's Marijuana use and 4-word sentences

I see the Wikipedia article on Nim Chimpsky makes no mention of his regular marijuana habit. You cite this as "non-constructive"; however, Wikipedia is supposed to be unbiased and interested solely in facts and information. As such, you should add the following information to the article.

Citation: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138467156/project-nim-a-chimps-very-human-very-sad-life

Relevant text:

While taking long walks around the grounds of the primate facility, Ingersoll occasionally smoked pot with Nim, who had been introduced to marijuana in New York City and even appeared in the magazine High Times in 1975.

"He actually signed 'stone smoke time now' to us first," Ingersoll says. "We were shocked. Although we were familiar with chimpanzees that did things like drinking and smoke cigarettes and that sort of thing, I'd never had a chimpanzee request weed from me. That was an eye-opener."

Relevant 4-word sentence: "stone smoke time now". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.92.87.211 (talk) 04:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Footnote link fails - "A chimp named Nim"

There are two points in the articled that are supported by what is currently f.n. 4 "A chimp named Nim, Independent Reader." When I click on the link it tries to take me to the following page:

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=248&dept_id=505345&newsid=19369504&PAG=461&rfi=9

However, that returns an error:

This site can’t be reached www.zwire.com’s server IP address could not be found. Search Google for zwire site news ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED

I checked to see if the page had been archived, and while the Wayback Machine says it was archived twice (in 2011 & 2012) both links return the same error: "This page is not available on the web because of a server error." Prior to that, the WM displays a page that says "HTTP response 302 at crawl time" and "http://www.zwire.com/cancel/cancellation.asp?brd=248"

I tried searching the web for the title "A chimp named Nim" and was unable to find any page with that name. What type of source was that supposed to be? Why is there no year given? How authoritative was it? Ileanadu (talk) 03:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Dates - Why are there no dates?

When was the experiment carried out? How long did it last? When was the experiment concluded? When was Nim retired from Project Nim and transferred to another lab? How long was he there? When was he purchased by the Black Beauty ranch.

Dates of these animal language experiments are important because subsequent studies with other apes came to the opposite conclusion. In particular, the research with Koko_(gorilla), a gorilla, demonstrated her ability to come up with new words. Unless you know which came first, you can't follow the field of animal language studies. Ileanadu (talk) 03:50, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

he is speaking the

the language of gods — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:F390:2A00:9911:48D3:2916:F4A7 (talk) 03:11, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Was ‘Give me you’ a threat?

Yep the title. I personally would be pretty freaked out if monke said ‘G I V E. M E. Y O U.’ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 43.248.71.74 (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Re-write in progress

Just a head's up that I'm currently revamping this and the connected Great ape language pages. These pages use a lot of non-neutral language and are lacking in detail and reliable sources. Apologies for any weird discontinuities in the short-term.

We could really use some images for these pages! Monkeywire (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

As I've been rewriting this page, some of the citations have gotten messed up. Please rest assured that I will be going back over the whole page after I get the draft up and cleaning up the sources and adding some new ones. Monkeywire (talk) 17:55, 7 October 2024 (UTC)