Read "Hochigan" by Jorge Luis Borges online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Ages ago, a certain South African bushman, Hochigan, hated animals, which at that time were endowed with speech. One day he disappeared, stealing their special gift. From then on, animals have never spoken again. Descartes tells us that monkeys could speak if they wished to, but that they prefer to keep silent so that they won't be made to work. In 1907, the Argentine writer Lugones published a story about a chimpanzee who was taught how to speak and died under the strain of the effort.