96 



GORILLAS AND CHIMPANZEES 



in order to select such words for him to try as were 

 best adapted to his ability. 



I selected the word inamiita, which may almost be 

 considered a universal word of human speech ; the 

 French word feu, fire ; the German word wie, howl, 

 and the native Nkami word nkgwe, mother. Every 

 day I took him on my lap and tried to induce him 

 to say one or more of these words. For a long" 

 time he made no effort to learn them, but after some 

 weeks of persistent labour and a bribe of corned 

 beef, he began to see dimly what I wanted him to 

 do. The native word quoted is very similar to one 

 of the sounds of his own speech, which means 

 *'good" or satisfaction." The vowel element 

 differs in them, and he was not able in the time he 

 was under tuition to change them, but he distin- 

 guished them from other words. 



In his attempt to say mamma he only worked his 

 lips without making any sound, although he really 

 tried to do so, and I believe that in the course of 

 time he would have succeeded. He observed the 

 movement of my lips, and tried to imitate them, but 

 seemed to think that the lips alone produced the sound. 



With feu he succeeded fairly well, except that the 

 consonant element as he uttered it resembled " v" 

 more than *'f," so that the sound was more like vu 

 making the u short as in " nut." It was quite as per- 

 fect as most people of other tongues ever learn to 

 speak the same word in French, and if it had been 

 uttered in a sentence, any one knowing that language 

 would recognise it as meaning fire. 



