时差N小时 黑猩猩或使用手语与人类沟通(下)

（单词翻译）

They understood basic grammatical constructions, such as the difference between “me eat apple” and “apple eat me.”

它们也能明白基本的语法结构，比如“我吃苹果”和“苹果吃我”的区别。

They invented their own words, such as “water bird” for a swan.

它们自己还发明单词，例如将天鹅称作“水鸟”。

One especially adept¹ chimp² named Lucy was seen leafing through a magazine and signing “cat” when she saw a tiger, “drink” when she saw a wine ad, and “cry hurt food” when she tasted a radish.

一只名叫Lucy的黑猩猩十分聪慧，人们发现它翻阅杂志时，看到老虎会作出“猫”的手势；看到酒饮广告会作出“喝”的手势。当它吃到萝卜时，会“说”这是“伤心哭泣的食物”。

Another chimp in a similar experiment came up with the sentence “Give orange me give eat orange give me you,” when he wanted an orange.

在另一项类似的实验中，一只想吃橙子的黑猩猩用手势表示：“给橙我，给吃，橙给我，你”。

Sound familiar? If you’ve ever had a two-year old in the house you may recognize that kind of pattern.

听起来耳熟吧？如果你家里有一个两岁小孩，你一定对这样的场景不陌生。

In fact, chimps³ were found to have roughly the linguistic⁴ abilities of two-year-old humans.

事实上，人们发现黑猩猩大约有两岁儿童的语言能力。

It’s not Einstein, but it’s a far cry from being “dumb animals.”

它虽不及爱因斯坦这样的巨匠，但也绝不会是“愚蠢动物”。