Jennie (14 page)

Dr. Epstein explained everything. What you hope to do with this book. So what's your background? I would like to know what makes you such an expert in this subject that you can write a book
about it. [Editor's note: At this point a lengthy discussion of the author's credentials followed, which did not entirely satisfy Dr. Prentiss. For the sake of the story we have omitted this discussion.]

The long and the short of it is, I'm only going to talk to you because Dr. Epstein told me to. Okay? Forgive my skepticism. All the journalists I've dealt with have been so poorly informed. They don't make the slightest effort to understand the
science
. Journalists are lazy and stupid. I won't mention any names. But take that young man from
Esquire
magazine. Did you know his journalism background was in celebrity profiles? He wrote about movie stars, so that gave him the authority to write about Jennie. Why, you see, Jennie was a celebrity. Make me laugh. And you'd think the
Boston Globe
would be concerned about scientific accuracy. That hapless reporter didn't even know the difference between an
ape
and a
monkey
. It would have been funny if it weren't so pathetic.

I've brought some things for you to read: papers, offprints, monographs. This'll be a start, and then when you need more—see those three shelves? That's
all
Jennie research. You'll have to read most of that stuff too. It's really very interesting, if you take the time.

Now, I want to make you understand. I'll talk to you on certain conditions only. [Editor's note: Again, most of this discussion has been omitted.]

Finally, you'll tell the
truth
. I've read so many lies about the project I can hardly stand it. If this book can set the record straight—well, you'll be doing us a service. And I hope you won't mind if I turn on my own tape recorder while we talk. It isn't that I don't trust you. . . .

I've brought some notes here. Whoops! Shit. Help me pick this up. For Christ's sake now everything's messed up. Let me see. . . . My work with Jennie began on May 1, 1967. She learned her first two signs five weeks later, on—let's see here—June 4, 1967. They were
hug
and
me
. On June 6, she spontaneously signed
Hug me
Jennie
to Mrs. Archibald, her surrogate mother. Mrs. Archibald was under the impression that Jennie's first sign had been directed at her. I didn't correct that misapprehension. Why? I should suppose the reason's obvious.

My technique was to mold Jennie's hands into the sign while speaking the word. We always
spoke
the words while we were signing them. Jennie already seemed to understand some English. I molded her hands into
hug
, and then gave her her reward, which was a hug. As soon as Jennie learned a sign, I wouldn't respond to her requests unless she used the sign. For example, when she learned
drink
. From that point on, in order to get a drink she would have to sign
drink
. Her reward was, of course, receiving the drink, or the hug, or whatever she wanted.

We didn't use food as a reward. As some previous ASL researchers did. Jennie's reward was making herself understood. That is, she was rewarded like a human child would be rewarded. We wanted to replicate the way a human child acquires language. You don't cram food into an infant every time she says something, now, do you? Of course not.

The conditions at the Archibald household were not ideal. It was chaotic over there. But Jennie made extraordinary progress anyway. Our Barnum colony chimps learned at less than half the rate Jennie did. Jennie's progress had a lot to do with the Archibald boy, Sandy. He learned ASL as fast as a deaf child and used it extensively with Jennie. Jennie's surrogate parents, Mrs. Archibald in particular, didn't participate in the project. Jennie's rate of learning could have been even faster had there been consistency in her training. And in her relationship with her surrogate mother.

We faced some big problems with this experiment. The Archibald family went away on vacation every August. This interrupted my work with Jennie. Then there was this peculiar old cleric who lived across the street, who interfered constantly. Interference that Mrs. Archibald
encouraged
. I would have understood it if she were a religious woman. But she was not. Mrs. Archibald was
always undermining me. Very jealous of my relationship with Jennie. A very difficult woman. This priest or whatever learned the barest rudiments of ASL, which he combined with his own crude signs. It became a
serious
problem. I have never worked under such difficult conditions. Every week, I had to deprogram Jennie after a session with this terrible man. She never did learn the signs for
sky
or
clouds
, for example, confusing them with the cleric's crude sign for
God
. When she saw a bearded man, she would rub her head. I couldn't figure out what the hell she was doing. And then I learned that this rubbing was that priest's sign for
Jesus
. And one day she started making this gesture. It wasn't an ASL sign at all, and I realized with a shock—I'm sorry, but you won't believe this—that she was
crossing
herself. I can hardly believe it now when I look back, that this . . . this
man
was attempting to make Jennie into a Christian.
Why
the Archibalds put up with it is entirely beyond my comprehension. Dr. Archibald was a reasonably competent scientist but when it came to Jennie and family matters he deferred to his wife. She was—well, she was a difficult woman. A difficult woman. With a voice as cold as ice. You've met her. Need I say more?

There were other limitations. None of the children in the neighborhood who played with Jennie learned ASL. I feel this
must
have undermined her progress. It only proves how much
more
a chimpanzee could learn under better circumstances.

We expected her to learn five or ten signs the first year; instead she learned twenty-one. Let me check my notes here. . . . Shit, they're all mixed up. Where are my glasses? Here we are. . . . She learned forty-four the second year, sixty the third, fifty-one the fourth, and seventeen the fifth, for a total of one hundred and ninety-three signs. Now wait, is that right? I thought she learned more. Let me add this up. I always carry this calculator. What a godsend. Hmmmm. I guess it
was
one hundred and ninety-three. Well, still, that's a
lot
. More than any other chimp up to that time. Penny Patterson has taught that gorilla, Koko, six hundred signs.
Absolutely true. I've been there and seen it with my own eyes. I
know
, if I had been allowed to continue the project, I could have taught Jennie a thousand signs. Chimpanzees are
much
smarter than gorillas.

Anyway, of these one hundred and ninety-three signs, no less than twenty-five signs were of her own invention. No previous project had shown a chimpanzee inventing even a single sign. Our first paper was on Jennie's invented signs. Let's see, it's right there. In that volume.
Proceedings of the Thirty-third Annual Conference of the North American Association of Linguistics
. I think you've got an offprint of it in there somewhere. Is that it? No. Well it
should
be in there. Unless I've got it here. Let's see. . . . No, you must have it.

The four colony chimpanzees, on the other hand, learned ninety-one, one hundred and one, fifty-four, and sixty-six signs, respectively. None of them invented a single sign. During the course of the project, Jennie made over thirty thousand different utterances from these signs. That we know of. Of course, when I wasn't there no one kept track of anything Jennie said. We call them “utterances” because there's a question as to whether they are sentences. There's a big controversy whether chimps are creating sentences. Or whether they have language at all. Which is a bunch of shit, because they
do
. I mean, when Jennie says
Give Jennie apple
, what the hell is that if it isn't language? These people are full of shit. Excuse my French. That's another subject anyway. We're
still
analyzing this data.

Jennie's invention of signs was the first surprise. The first was the sign for
play
. It occurred in, let's see . . . April of 1968. April Fools Day. Aha! Here's that paper! I
knew
I had it in here. You'll definitely want to read this paper! It's only thirty pages. If some of the terminology confuses you, give me a call. Are you familiar with
Generative Grammar and Deep Structure: A Prolegomena to Future Linguistics?
What? It's a book, of course. An outstanding introduction
to linguistics. Very readable. By the great linguist, V. R. Czerczywicz. You can borrow this copy.

It happened like this. We were having a study session in our basement study room. The sun was shining outside the window and Jennie started to become restless. She vocalized and tried to open the locked door. I ignored her. Our methodology was to pretend not to understand Jennie's requests unless they were signed. She didn't know the sign for
play
, but she slapped the floor. It was a deliberate movement that to me looked uncannily
like
a sign. As an experiment, I slapped the floor. She slapped it and rattled the doorknob. I signed,
Jennie want to go outside and play?
But I used her sign for
play
, slapping the floor. She slapped the floor three or four times in succession, signing in between
Yes, yes, yes
.

So I rewarded her with a play session down by the brook. Playing tickle-chase, her favorite game.

After that, she signed
play
by slapping the floor or ground. She signed it when she saw children. And she sometimes signed it when she saw a dog or a cat. Her idea of playing with a dog, however, was chasing it and pulling its tail.

When Jennie was given that kitten, she often signed
play
to it insistently before picking it up and playing with it.

Let's see. What else do you need to know. When she wanted to make a strong point, she signed with both hands. At first we tried to curtail this practice. But she persisted. We finally gave in. And then Sandy started two-handed signing, and I found myself doing it. For emphasis. Deaf children—now this is interesting—also sign with both hands for emphasis. The linguistic parallels between human being and chimpanzee were quite startling.

Now here's something interesting. Jennie quickly began to use language to mislead us. Or to manage a situation more to her liking. For example, Jennie would use the sign
dirty
to indicate a need to use the toilet.
Dirty
goes like this. [Dr. Prentiss demonstrated the sign, patting the back of her hand under her chin.]

Jennie discovered she could get out of a boring lesson by signing
dirty
when she didn't have to go. We'd rush her to the potty and nothing would happen. It happened again and again. Then we figured it out. She was lying to us. Of course, she sometimes
did
have to go. So when she
really
had to go, and we doubted her, she started signing
Dirty dirty dirty
with both hands, like this: [Dr. Prentiss made another demonstration with both hands.]

If she wanted a banana and signed
Banana
, and it wasn't forthcoming, she would often start signing
Banana! Banana!
with both hands, like this: [Again, a demonstration.]

Jennie used language much like a human child. I'll never forget when this was brought home to me. I was trying to end a play session and resume study in the house. Jennie refused to cooperate. I became increasingly frustrated and finally I clipped a lead around her neck, which for Jennie was the ultimate punishment. She rushed at me in full piloerection, and I was afraid she was going to bite me. Instead she violently signed
Bite, angry, angry, bite!
with both hands right in my face. It was an astonishing and very intimidating performance.

This occurred—where are those damn notes?—on October 5, 1968.

[F
ROM
an interview with Lea Archibald.]

One of the oddest episodes in Jennie's life started about this time. Did I mention the Episcopal minister who lived across the street, the one who looked like Charlie Brown? Well, Jennie had been visiting him regularly. He fed her enormous quantities of chocolate chip cookies and milk. It's a wonder that that wife of his would let Jennie in the house. Anyway, he came to me with the idea of—I'm not quite sure how to put it—
converting
Jennie to Christianity. Giving her religious tutoring. He said—and I'm quite serious—that he felt God had called him to bring Christianity to the poor dumb
animals or something like that. Can you imagine? I could hardly keep myself from laughing. But he was so serious, and so embarrassed, that I promised I'd talk to Hugo about it. He had been so kind to Jennie.

I thought Hugo would scotch the idea. You know, he didn't believe in God or anything like that. But he thought the idea was marvelously funny. He roared with laughter and said that he didn't see any harm in it. Oh my goodness. Jennie, he said, would love the attention. And it would get Jennie off our hands for an afternoon a week. Dr. Palliser was as kindly an old man as you could find, so earnest and gentle.

Well! I spoke to Dr. Prentiss about it and—you can imagine—she was horrified. I can't help but laugh when I think about it. Oh, she was just scandalized. She said, “What? This
cleric
wants to give Jennie religious instruction? How peverse!”

I explained that he was really a harmless old man who Jennie was quite fond of. Dr. Prentiss found the whole idea diabolical. It would ruin her experiment! Well, I thought about that for all of two seconds and decided that what was right for Jennie was not necessarily right for Dr. Prentiss and her experiments. There are times, you know, when a mother simply has to do what she thinks is right.