Received wisdom says that most people (consciously or otherwise) believe humans are separate from and superior to the rest of the animal kingdom. Even today, this appears to be the case. In English, we have names for the young of thousands of animals, but all apes; chimps, orangutans, gorillas and humans have young called babies or infants. The English speaking world has been aware of other ape species for a long, long time before Darwin quietly ; why don't we have separate names for their young?
A quick google suggest we call all baby primates babies or infants too.
My guess is that, deep down, we've always known we're closely linked to all other primates and used the term which would appear most appropriate, regardless of what cultural or religious dogma was telling us.
What's the name for a baby ape?
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What's the name for a baby ape?
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Re: What's the name for a baby ape?
I think it's easier to feel empathy with other creatures that nurture and nurse their young in such a similar way to the way we do it. Just the primate way of cradling a baby in arms is evocative of human behaviour. It's familiar ...Pappa wrote:Received wisdom says that most people (consciously or otherwise) believe humans are separate from and superior to the rest of the animal kingdom. Even today, this appears to be the case. In English, we have names for the young of thousands of animals, but all apes; chimps, orangutans, gorillas and humans have young called babies or infants. The English speaking world has been aware of other ape species for a long, long time before Darwin quietly ; why don't we have separate names for their young?
A quick google suggest we call all baby primates babies or infants too.
My guess is that, deep down, we've always known we're closely linked to all other primates and used the term which would appear most appropriate, regardless of what cultural or religious dogma was telling us.
I think you're right about a subconscious sense, or recognition, of some sort of ... kinship?
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Re: What's the name for a baby ape?
Actually, we do, and computer programmers have adopted one of them for small software utilities. They call them applets.Pappa wrote:The English speaking world has been aware of other ape species for a long, long time before Darwin quietly ; why don't we have separate names for their young?
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