what-does-a-chimp-say
Explanation
The Joke
A mother asks her baby in the classic parent-to-toddler style: "And what does a chimp say?" Instead of making an animal noise, the baby responds: "Chimps are incapable of language." The caption reads: "Nobody liked baby Noam Chomsky."
The Humor
The comic imagines the famous linguist Noam Chomsky as a baby, responding to the common parental game of "what does the [animal] say?" with his actual academic position on animal communication. Chomsky is well known for arguing that human language is fundamentally different from animal communication systems, and that non-human primates lack the innate linguistic capacity (specifically, what he calls "universal grammar") that enables true language. The joke works because the baby is being simultaneously precocious and insufferable — giving a technically correct academic answer to what is meant to be a fun, playful interaction. The caption "Nobody liked baby Noam Chomsky" suggests that Chomsky's contrarian, pedantic tendencies were present from birth, making him an unpleasant child to interact with.
References
- Noam Chomsky (b. 1928): An American linguist, philosopher, and political commentator, often called "the father of modern linguistics." He developed the theory of universal grammar, arguing that the ability to acquire language is innate to humans.
- The language debate: Chomsky has been a prominent skeptic of claims that apes can learn language, arguing that experiments teaching sign language to chimpanzees (such as the famous case of Washoe) do not demonstrate true linguistic competence but rather conditioned responses.