Which chimpanzee's name is a pun on linguist Noam Chomsky?

The chimpanzee named as a pun on linguist Noam Chomsky is Nim Chimpsky.

Nim Chimpsky was the subject of Project Nim, a Columbia University study launched by psychologist Herbert S. Terrace in 1973. The project attempted to teach a young chimpanzee American Sign Language and test whether a nonhuman animal could acquire human-like language.

His name combines “Nim,” from the project, with “Chimpsky,” a playful reference to Noam Chomsky. Chomsky argued that human language depends on distinctive mental and biological capacities, making him a natural target for the project’s naming joke and scientific challenge.

Nim learned many signs, but Terrace later concluded from videotaped interactions that the chimp mostly imitated trainers and used signs to obtain rewards rather than generating grammatical, spontaneous sentences. The interpretation remains part of the wider debate over ape communication. The name itself, however, is straightforward: Nim Chimpsky is a linguistic pun, not the name of a language or a research method.