Noam Chomsky on Nim Chimpsky and the emergence of language

I first learned about Nim Chimpsky while reading Karen Joy Fowler's brilliant novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. I'd heard the name before, but I just thought it was a joke about Noam Chomsky. Which it is. But also, he was a real chimp, who was raised like a human child and acquired over 100 words through sign language. — Read the rest