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Great ape language research historically involved attempts to teach chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate using imitative human speech, sign language, physical tokens and computerized lexigrams.
Washoe (1965 – October 30, 2007) was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using signs adapted from American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
However, further experiments in which chimpanzees were instructed in the use of American sign language indicated that Viki's achievements had been significantly hampered by physiological limitations—chimpanzees are not able to produce the sounds that make up human speech. Viki lived like a human, even with a human sibling, for three years ...
Nim Chimpsky [1] (November 19, 1973 – March 10, 2000) was a chimpanzee used in a study to determine whether chimps could learn a human language, American Sign Language (ASL). The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace of Columbia University with linguistic analysis by psycholinguist Thomas Bever .
Eugene Linden, a journalist who spent years studying apes involved in language experiments and co-wrote (with Patterson) The Education of Koko, also expressed concerns about Patterson's practices. Linden reported that Koko's signing was more fluid and precise than that of Washoe and other Oklahoma chimpanzees. [36]
Although chimpanzees have been kept as pets, their strength, aggressiveness, and unpredictability makes them dangerous in this role. Some hundreds have been kept in laboratories for research, especially in the United States. Many attempts have been made to teach languages such as American Sign Language to chimpanzees, with limited success.
It was a great surprise to researchers then when one day, while Matata was away, Kanzi began competently using the lexigrams, becoming not only the first observed ape to have learned aspects of language naturalistically rather than through direct training, but also the first observed bonobo to appear to use some elements of language at all.
Lana (October 7, 1970 - November, 2016) was a female chimpanzee, the first to use lexigrams in language research. She was born at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University, and the project she was allocated to when 1 year old, the LANguage Analogue project led by Duane Rumbaugh, was named after her with the acronym LANA because the project team felt that her identity was ...