Abstract This paper is in two parts. The first part reviews and summarizes past work in ape language research, including the Gardners' work with the chimp Washoe, Francine Patterson's work with Koko the gorilla, Lyn Miles's work with Chantek the orangutan and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work with bonobos and chimps. The second part is a proposal for an experiment to teach American Sign Language to a group of bonobos and then use these communicative abilities to test their memory and planning abilities. It includes descriptions of bonobo behavior in the wild and captivity, an argument for gestural language as the first human language and a description of the means of teaching and testing the bonobos in the proposed experiment. The paper includes a table and illustrations.
From the Paper "During the Oligocene epoch of the Tertiary period, a small monkey-like creature lived in the rainforest trees in central Africa. About thirty million years ago, this primate ancestor diverged into two distinct species; one would father the line of Old World monkeys, including baboons and macaques. The other would become the predecessor of modern apes and humans. Around twenty-two million years ago gibbons split away from that line and formed a branch known as the lesser apes. Six or seven million years later, orangutans too diverged from the ape lineage and migrated to the Asian islands of Sumatra and Borneo, where they remained highly arboreal. Another eight or nine million years passed, during which this ape line began to spend more time on the ground, and gorillas split off to become their own species. Two million years more went by, bringing us to the Pliocene epoch, which began about five million years ago. It was at this crucial point in evolutionary history that our ancestors and the ancestors of modern chimpanzees and bonobos took different paths, the former leading to bipedality, ground-based life, and hominization, the latter eventually splitting into two more distinct species about three million years ago, both of whom would remain remarkably similar to us physically, behaviorally, emotionally, and intellectually (Goodall, Hook, Leakey, Linden 1992)."
A discussion of the sign and symbol-based language experiments conducted with great apes over the last forty years, including criticisms, findings, and implications. Addresses projects with gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos.
6,395 words (approx. 25.6 pages), 15 sources, 2002, $ 148.95
Abstract This paper addresses a number of different language experiments that have been performed with all four species of great apes - gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos, and the advantages, disadvantages, and relative success of each, including conducted experiments. The author discusses the physical limitations of the apes, the advantages of using sign language as opposed to keyboard and symbol-based language, and criticisms brought up by various skeptics. The paper also mentions other types of cognitive activities in which the apes have participated, including painting and learning a system of economic exchange.
From the paper:
"The Koko Project is currently the longest running and most successful of all the ape language projects. Patterson's goal was for Koko [the gorilla] to learn 200 signs ? she now knows over a thousand, and understands at least 2,000 words of spoken English. She asks questions, she lies, she tells stories, she uses the negative, she uses and understands abstract words like love, hate, and death, and she even tells jokes. One of the most famous incidents involves a conversation between Koko and one of her teachers regarding the color of her blanket. As she was getting ready to go to bed, the teacher asked Koko what color the blanket was. Koko responded "red," even though the blanket was white. The teacher admonished her and asked her again, refusing to believe that Koko would make such a simple mistake. Still, Koko responded "red," and repeated it several times. The teacher was perplexed. Then Koko pulled a tiny piece of red lint off the blanket, pointed to it, and signed "red," and started laughing her deep, breathy, gorilla laugh. Humor, then, is another quality we humans can no longer claim for ourselves alone."
Abstract This paper examines the Bonobo species which is a slightly smaller animal than the chimpanzee. It looks at their habitat, behavior, food sources, as well as their physical features and other relevant factors and elements.
From the Paper "Commonly referred to as Wernicke's, this area of the brain has been linked to what is assumed to be human behaviors in relation to "musical talent, communication disorders, such as the disease of schizophrenia as well as dyslexia. The rarely used left brained language areas are seldom used except in cases previous and in those born deaf making use of sign language. According to Dr. Gannon, he and Dr. Braun discovered, after having received MRI's (magnetic resonance images) of the brains of chimpanzees sent from the Smithsonian Institute, discovered that the left side of the Planum Temporale was larger than that of the right side upon direct inspection to brains of cadavers. The Bonobo or Pan paniscus are closely related to the chimpanzees, or Pan troglodytes. The Bonobo's habitation is the central basin "Cuvette Centrale, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, south of the Congo River. Scientists believe that the two species of the Pan were somehow separated about two and one-half million years ago and the Bonobos since then having developed traits that are specific to their species and is the basis for the difference between the classification of the Bonobo's and the chimpanzees."
Abstract This paper examines how primate interaction is among the most advanced of all mammals, excluding humans, and how primate interaction, unlike many other animal species, is based around banding together in groups. It looks at how primates are social creatures that function through male domination, competition, and eventual confrontation, and how all species of primates have relatively similar behavior patterns concerning these issues, except for the bonobos, whose behavior is quite unusual compared to their primate peers.
From the Paper "One of the most interesting dynamics of the primates? social interaction is when male silverbacks from different groups confront each other. Often a rival silverback will challenge for control of the group. If the rival is successful, he takes control of the females and their offspring from the previous silverback (Gilders 32). Oddly enough, the new leading silverback will often kill the offspring, and prepare the females for the breeding of his offspring (Gilders 32). Gilders notes that during a fifteen year period at Virunga, thirty-eight percent of the infant deaths were due to infanticide caused by the rival silverback (32)."
Abstract This paper is composed of annotated bibliographies and a literature review of ten different research articles dealing with the acquisition of nonverbal, gestural, or sign languages. It addresses non-verbal language as a first language and a second language, as well as non-verbal language and symbolic communication systems in non-human primates and prehuman ancestors.
From the Paper "Sharon Begley's main point in this article is that "the human brain is wired for gestural communication" just as it is for spoken language, from a nativist perspective. She draws on examples from apes who have learned signed languages, deaf-mute children who have invented their own languages in the absence of an established sign language, and the fact that blind people gesture at the same rate as sighted people. She cites studies of wild bonobos who use symbolic gesture to communicate with each other, and deaf children who created a signed language with more complex grammatical structures than the spoken language in their environment."
Abstract This paper examines several research studies on the sexual and mating habits of orangutans, langur monkeys, bonobos and chimpanzees, each of which concluded that the sexual and reproductive behaviors of these primates is abnormal when the animals live in captivity.
From the Paper "Human researchers have always been deeply fascinated with primate behaviors because they are of much closer genetic relation than any other animals. Likewise, the studies of sexuality and mating social behaviors are of particular interest to people because, within human social structures, this area remains both mysterious and untamed, and at the same time entirely necessary for the survival of human relationships and survival of the species. Parallels that may offer some understanding of our own sexual and mating habits can be found in the observations made of Orangutans, Langur Monkeys, Bonobos, and Chimpanzees by various researchers."
Abstract This paper discusses the acquisition of language, opportunities and limitations of language and the consequences of language for individuals and society. The paper discusses the way in which language sets human being apart from other species. However, it also presents the argument that the language skills shown by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) show that humans are not unique in this regard.
From the Paper "Acquisition of Language, Opportunities and Limitations of Language, and the Consequences of Language for Individuals and Society One of the extraordinary things about human beings is our ability to communicate via language, whether spoken or written. In fact, it is argued that this is the one thing that sets us apart from all other species. Some have argued that the "language skills" shown by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) show that humans are not unique in this regard. (Rumbaugh and Velichkovsky) However, it is here argued that - notwithstanding the fact that chimps can learn to sign for bananas - the only species that has real language in a meaningful sense is the human species."
