Jane Goodall Quotes About Language

Quotes about: Language

• We started off with physical evolution and got our form. Then we somehow developed language, which meant cultural evolution could race so we could change our behavior really quickly instead of over hundreds and hundreds of years. And then comes moral evolution, which means we're not frightfully far along with people. And maybe we end up with a spiritual evolution, which is this connectedness with the rest of the life forms on the planet.

  Jane Goodall

  Spiritual, Mean, Years

  "Exclusive Interview with Dr. Jane Goodall". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 1, 2010.

• What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

  Jane Goodall

  Thinking, Language, Sophisticated

• Chimps are unbelievably like us - in biological, non-verbal ways. They can be loving and compassionate and yet they have a dark side... 98 per cent of our DNA is the same. The difference is that we have developed language - we can teach about things that aren't there, plan for the future, discuss, share ideas

  Jane Goodall

  Dark, Intelligent, Dna

• We have language and they do not. Chimps communicate by embracing, patting, looking - all these things. And they have lots of sounds. But they cannot sit and discuss. They cannot teach about things that are not present, as far as we know.

  Jane Goodall

  Sound, Language, Teach

  "Chimps with everything: Jane Goodall's 50 years in the jungle". Interview with Robin McKie, www.theguardian.com. June 26, 2010.

• Chimpanzees are incredibly intelligent. They can learn more than 400 signs of American Sign Language. They have memories for spatial distribution, like numbers on a TV screen, way better than ours. You come onto the emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and despair - all the things for which I was accused of being anthropomorphic when I ascribed them to chimpanzees.

  Jane Goodall

  Memories, Sadness, Intelligent

• Our brain is almost the same as the chimps', but we have language, we have electronic communications, we've put people on the moon - we are immensely more intelligent. And yet: how come the being with the most extraordinary intellect ever is destroying its only planet?

  Jane Goodall

  Communication, Intelligent, Moon

  Source: www.egonzehnder.com

• I think we're still in a muddle with our language, because once you get words and a spoken language it gets harder to communicate.

  Jane Goodall

  Thinking, Language, Communicate

• Is it not possible that the chimpanzees are responding to some feeling like awe? A feeling generated by the mystery of water; water that seems alive, always rushing past yet never going, always the same yet ever different. Was it perhaps similar feelings of awe that gave rise to the first animistic religions, the worship of the elements and the mysteries of nature over which there was no control? Only when our prehistoric ancestors developed language would it have been possible to discuss such internal feelings and create a shared religion.

  Jane Goodall

  Past, Rushing, Water

  "Reason for Hope: a Spiritual Journey". Book by Jane Goodall, Phillip L. Berman, 2000.

• The chimpanzees taught me a lot about nonverbal communication. The big difference between them and us is that they don't have spoken language. Everything else is almost the same: Kissing, embracing, swaggering, shaking the fist.

  Jane Goodall

  Communication, Kissing, Differences

  "Even Chimps Understand Sustainability". Interview with Philip Bethge and Johann Grolle, www.spiegel.de. October 7, 2015.

• Language allows us to talk about the past and plan the future. We can teach children about things that are not present. And above all, we can bring people with different backgrounds and different knowledge together to discuss our problems. This actually gives me hope. I still think we are smart enough to not destroy planet Earth, our only home.

  Jane Goodall

  Children, Smart, Home

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