communication / community / commune / communion / common : mingle together as one

Let us begin with two remarkable observations:

1. Apes cannot speak

2. Apes cannot play a piano

Why should this be the case? After all, great apes such as chimpanzees and gorillas are our closest living relatives, and share most of our genetic heritage. They have well-formed hands that they can use to manipulate their environment. Their brain is more like ours in its structure and organisation than that of any other animal; from it they generate some disturbingly familiar behavioural traits. But despite all this, despite recent evidence that chimps are capable of some degree of abstract thought, no ape has ever spoken, or played music, or, for that matter, changed a car tyre or knitted a jumper or played football. In contrast, all humans have the intrinsic capacity for speech, for music, for making and manipulating artefacts. This combination of vocal and fine motor skills above anything else defines us as human apes.

Speech can be overrated: when words fail