The Speech of Monkeys

CHAPTER XXII. The Phonograph as an aid to Science--Vowels the basis of Phonation--Consonants developed from a Vowel basis--Vowels are Compound--The Analysis of Vowels by the Phonograph--Current Theories of Sound--Augmentation of Sounds--Sound Waves and Sound Units--Consonants among the Lower Races. The application of the phonograph to my special work is really the discovery of a new field of usefulness for that wonderful instrument, which, up to this time, has held the place of a toy more than that of a scientific apparatus of the very highest importance in the study of acoustics and philology. In many ways the use of this machine is so hampered by the avarice of men as to lessen its value as an aid to scientific research, and the Letters Patent under which it is protected preclude all competition and prevent improvements. However, I have been able, even with the poor machines in general use, to discover some of the most important facts upon which are based the laws of phonation. I shall here attempt to give in detail but a few of these experiments, as they are yet crude, and in some cases the deductions therefrom not positively certain. [Sidenote: VOICES OF MEN AND MONKEYS] From the various records that I have made of the voices of men and monkeys, I am prepared to say that the difference is not so great as is commonly supposed, and that I have converted each one into the other. I would not be understood to say that I have done this with all their sounds, nor that the monkey's sounds were converted into human speech, but the fundamental sounds of each were changed into those of the other.