Prof. Dr Esther Ruigendijk
Institute of Foreign Language Philology

• Photos from the lecture

Why can’t monkeys learn Dutch, whereas we humans can? Children are actually even better at it than adults. Language – whether Dutch, German or Chinese – is a distinctly human trait. It is so complex that no one has yet succeeded in teaching a monkey or any other animal a human language to the extent that it can use it as well as we do. Not even after many years of tuition! Monkeys can learn a few words, but they struggle with grammar – that is, the part of language that governs how words are combined into sentences. Young children, on the other hand, master the grammar of their mother tongue by the age of about six almost as well as adults, and without any formal teaching. It’s a miracle. What makes our language so complicated, and how do humans actually go about learning, understanding and producing language? And how can we study this? We’re going to tell you a bit about what makes human languages so special and what monkeys cannot learn: structure.

Host: Carola Schede

Wednesday, 2 September 2009
4.30 pm to 5.30 pm
Audimax, lecture centre