Re: Can a voice box be transplanted into a young chimp?

Could you transplant a human voice box into a chimp so that it could talk?

This is an interesting idea, but I don't think it would work - at least not 
right now.

First, you are correct in saying that there are a lot of immune suppressing 
drugs available right now, but they probably wouldn't work to well with a 
human-to-chimp transplant. Cross-species transplantation has been 
experimented with, but it is still fraught with many problems - medical and 
ethical. I don't have the expertise to go into all these issues here, but I 
think they would prevent this experiment from being attempted at this time.

Second, there is a lot more to language than the anatomical apparatus. 
True, some chimps, gorillas, and a number of other types of animals, have 
been taught various methods of gestural symbolic communication. Notice that 
I didn't use the word "language" there. Experts still debate whether these 
animals are truly communicating in the sense of using a language, versus 
memorizing a set pattern of gestures that will produce a specific human 
response. Cross species communication is not a new phenomenon. My cat can 
clearly communicate to me when she wants to go outside, when she wants to 
get feed, etc, but that's not language. Most animals have some type of 
warning system that is very easy to understand by all other species - how 
many of us needed to be "taught" the meaning of a rattlesnake's rattle or a 
dog's snarl? All of these are example of communication, and none is an 
example of language.

Part of the problem here is the meaning of language. For that, I would 
refer you to the language experts - and even still you might not get a 
single clear answer. To me, language requires the use of abstract symbols 
to represent abstract thoughts; it requires the ability to invent new 
symbols, or new symbol combinations, in a way that still conveys meaning; 
and finally it requires the ability to be learned though imitation. 
Although signing apes have demonstrated some of these attributes, none of 
them have demonstrated all of these attributes. This makes the ape language 
experiments interesting, even fascinating, but not conclusive.

Finally, what would it mean if a chimp with a human voice-box learned to 
talk? What would that tell us? It would say nothing about the ape's 
capacity for language, since that capacity only manifests itself though 
artificial means. What would it mean if you successfully transplanted the 
voice-box, but the chimp never learned to speak? Again, that would tell us 
nothing about the ape's capacity for communication since its brain may not 
be able to "figure out" how the human voice-box works. 

In short, I think the experiment you describe would not accomplish much 
with respect to learning about the nature of language - although it might 
teach us a lot about surgical procedures and cross-species transplantation.