http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=90516132


"Back in the 1970s, a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky took part in a Columbia University research study called "Project Nim."

Project Nim was led by Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia who was attempting to find out if a chimpanzee could learn to communicate using American Sign Language.

"Everyone knows that words are learned one at a time," but something happens when children begin to combine words and create true language, Terrace says.

The question, he says, was, "Could Nim do this?"

A newly released book takes a look at the project, and the people involved examine the ethics of the experiment.

The name Nim Chimpsky was a twist on Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist who theorized that language as we know it is unique to humans. Terrace wanted to disprove Chomsky's theory and show that a chimpanzee could develop real language."



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Mademoiselle