Louisa's Reviews > Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees

Is the use of language unique to humankind? How and when did our hominid ancestors acquire language? Do chimpanzees - who are genetically closer to humans than they are to other apes - have language abilities? Is sign language useful where other communication channels fail, for example in children with autism? Next of Kin addresses these and other questions through the story of a young female chimpanzee who was taught American Sign Language in the 1960s. Roger Fouts was assigned to Project Washoe, an initiative of Dr. Allen Gardner to raise a chimpanzee as a human child and communicate only through sign language (everyone who worked with Washoe had to take a vow of silence) and his observations are recorded in this book.

Fouts argues that it is a mistake to equate language with speech, that speech and the communication through gestures require the same cognitive basis for language in the brain, and that primates have had language capabilities for millions of years.
His experiences with Washoe - carefully recorded and scientifically tested - proved Chomsky and Descartes wrong and Darwin right: the use of language is not unique to humankind. Chimpanzees really are our next of kin.
An excellent, excellent work.