Project Nim - Documentary

[snowleopard]

Project Nim is a very intriguing 2011 documentary about a chimpanzee that was taken from its mother when it was two weeks old (in the early 1970's), and then raised with humans and taught sign language. On the movie website rottentomatoes.com it received a 98% positive rating from critics, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it and would recommend it to others. There are 122 reviews and 119 are positive:

Project Nim - Rotten Tomatoes

 

[DavidBrown]

I have heard that this is a good documentary and eerily similar in some ways to "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (the part with James Franco's character raising Caesar, not the apes fighting the California Highway Patrol for control of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge). I will check it out on your recommendation.

 

[Jurek7]

You may browse the internet about other language experiments on apes (Washoe the chimp, bonobo Kanzi, gorilla Koko etc). They much exceed abilities of Nim, although probably the stories are not so emotional, heart-catching etc.

 

[Pertinax]

What I find so debatable about these experiments is whether Apes can really master 'Language' including grammar to construct sentences etc.

I can understand them linking symbols, or even words, to objects, e.g. 'cup' ' give food' 'mama' etc but constructing words or linking whole sentences together? Really? How can the scientists prove they are doing this?