No. We are not trained apes. From as early as seven months human children can understand and learn grammatical rules. Have you ever heard of “feral children”? These are children raised without human contact. There have been studies of 36 documented cases of these children, and they don’t speak until learning from another human. While it’s true we humans need to be taught language…

We are not trained apes.

Some chimpanzee trainers have had success training their animals to recognize quite a few words, symbols, and even make some limited hand signs. But here’s a key thing…

…when the trained animal dies, the trainer’s hard work goes down the drain. These apes don’t pass on their “vocabulary” to their offspring. And no apes in the wild have shown true vocabulary skills. True language requires vocabulary AND grammar because it’s only with grammar that we can use a few words to express a variety of ideas.

We humans also have a variety of methods of expressing language. We have speaking and hearing…reading and writing…signing…Braille (touch)…and even tapping (Morse code). When something prevents us from communicating one way, we use another. It’s hard-wired into us.

Our language and ability to communicate isn’t getting more and more complex…in other words…evolving. No, it’s actually devolving. English, for example, is much less complex than even in the days of America’s founding fathers. Read their documents…even their personal letters to and from their spouses…and you’ll see a much more fluid and flowing use of mood, voice, verb form, syntax, tense, and inflection.

For a human to need another human in order to learn to speak, this means the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There just isn’t any evidence that language evolved. This, of course, means that humans didn’t either. And that we are not trained apes or any other form of evolved creatures.

In Faith, Hope, and Love,