Innate Animal Linguistic Ability

On the subject of the father of modern linguistics, Noam Chomsky, I am intrigued by his idea that the properties of language in the human mind are innate, and that language acquisition is a uniquely human ability. I thought about this, while imagining conversing in sign language with Coco, the gorilla. Then, I remembered that the 1984 Nobel Prize Laureate, Niels K. Jerne, equated components of Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar theory with various features of protein structures, with “some imagination.”

Then I remembered the expression “ontology recapitulates phylogeny” from my pre-med classes at Carleton College, and thought about how new research reveals dynamic discoveries about other animals, including the complexity of dolphin and whale communication. Influential thinkers, like Noam Chomsky, seem out of date when we consider how swiftly our understanding of other life is changing. By increasing our human sophistication on this subject, we impact the practice of law because it reflects human thought about a just world. Like an ecosystem is interrelated, so is the world of thought and moral obligation.