ILE Masterworks Example B - Institute of Liberal Education

1. Ape Family Tree, 1960’s
2. Red-eyed Vireo and White-eyed Vireo; African Elephant and Indian Elephant
3. Washoe
4. Koko
5. Nim
6. Sarah
7. Lana
8. Kanzi
9. Ai

"What do you want to do for your Masterworks?" Talk about a question to make your mind go blank. "Well, what are you interested in?" Another question to make your mind go blank. When the question came I was completely unprepared for it. I was given a week to decide, and through the week I still could not figure out what it was that I wanted to spend the second half of the school year researching. The inspiration came to me when I remembered reading, in a National Geographic magazine, an article on Koko the gorilla and her kitten. So, I decided to do my Masterworks on Koko, and how she was taught sign language.

As you will see, that idea did not quite stay intact, but my eyes were opened to an issue which I had not heard of before. What you will read as you go through my paper is an overview of the most famous apes which have been or are being taught language, both sign language and other languages, and the criticisms of the different projects.

I think that apes can, and do, in fact, have language. However, I have included criticisms and rebuttals to this thesis, and you can come to your own conclusion. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed doing it.

In 1960, the theory of evolution said that the great apes and humans had separated 20 million years ago (Fig. 1). One group stayed on four limbs and became the great apes. (Apes are different from monkeys in that they have no tails and are far more intelligent.) The other became upright, soon to become humans. However, this long period of separation did not fit with Jane Goodall’s discovery that the chimpanzees were not only using tools but also making them. This was thought to be a trait unique to humans (Fouts 54). Also, it did not explain why they could think so much like us. Or, why, like the chimp Enos, they could ride in and operate a space capsule flawlessly, even when the on-board machine which issued instructions and gave rewards and punishments malfunctioned (Fouts 41). And, with young Washoe, why she could act and sign so much like a human child, and yet not be a human child.

That view of evolution also did not explain the fact that, in 1967, two scientists compared the blood of an ape and the blood of a human, and found that they were almost identical. From this, they came to the conclusion that humans and apes must be not separate species, but subspecies (Fouts 54). Then, in the early 1980’s, two other scientists compared the DNA of chimpanzees and humans. What they found was that our DNA and a chimpanzee’s DNA are 98.4 percent identical. This is a very significant number. It means that we are closer to chimpanzees than a red-eyed vireo is to a white-eyed vireo (two similar birds which are only 97.1 percent identical) (Fouts 55) or than an African elephant is to an Asian elephant (Fouts 57) (Fig. 2). We are almost as close to the chimpanzee, as the chimpanzee is to the bonobo (a subspecies of chimpanzee sometimes referred to as the pygmy chimpanzee). This led a noted physiologist to propose that humans are a third species of chimpanzee; perhaps we could be called the human chimpanzee (Fouts 55).

Chimpanzees are our next of kin, but we are the chimpanzee’s next of kin as well. 2.3 percent of gorilla DNA is different from chimpanzee and human DNA. Orangutan DNA is 3.6 percent different from chimpanzee DNA. But only 1.6 percent of human DNA is different from the chimpanzee’s (Fouts 55). In simple words, regardless of outward appearance, the chimpanzees and humans are next of kin.

The view of evolution described above did not explain the similarities between the apes and humans. Now there is a new theory. This one states that the hominid family stayed as one for 10 million years after the Old World monkeys branched off 25 million years ago. Then, 15 million years ago, the orangutans branched off. Next, 9 million years ago, the gorillas branched off. Lastly, humans branched off (Fig. 1). This, is an extremely different way of looking at evolution, because it means that you cannot group all of the three great apes into a category without including humans. On this family tree, Washoe the chimp is a hominid.

This new hominid family tree still does not explain everything, because the positions of the species on the tree do not seem to correspond to the similarities among the species, and no one can explain this.

The chimpanzee is considered our closest relative. This is not only because of their DNA, but also because of their behavior traits. They are very cooperative and altruistic, and express emotions, such as joy, sadness, excitement, and annoyance (Fouts x). They are also intelligent, nurture family bonds, mourn deaths, practice self-medication, and wage war (Fouts 58).

The orangutan is the most distant from humans according to the current family tree, and yet its brain most closely resembles a human’s. It is the most similar to humans in teeth, hormone levels, gestation period and hair pattern (Cavalieri 44). Also, orangutans have amazing reasoning abilities. While in captivity, they use these reasoning abilities to escape from their cages. As Benjamin Beck, who worked at a zoo said, when he was talking about what an orangutan would do if he spied a screwdriver on the floor:

In another example, an orangutan was shown how to make a knife out of flint, as our ancestors did 2 million years ago. When he saw a box of food which had been tied up with string, he promptly cut the string with the knife he had made, opened the box, and ate the food (Cavalieri 45-6).

The gorilla was always thought of as a dangerous and stupid animal. This is not the case at all. The reason gorillas were thought to be stupid is that they are extremely intelligent but also stubborn, and often refuse to do the tests which measure their intelligence. Koko the gorilla has commented on how boring she finds the repetitiveness of such tests (Patterson 76). As a result, the findings for gorilla intelligence were not very good. For a similar reason, they were considered dangerous. Gorillas are very impassioned and stubborn, and they would get very impatient during these tests. If forced to do something, they could get violent (Patterson 20). However, Dr. Francine Patterson and Koko have shown that, in fact, gorillas are very intelligent, and, so far in 30 years, Dr. Patterson has not been hurt.

Since the first time a live chimpanzee was sent to Europe in 1630, it has often been suggested that it would be possible to teach an ape to speak human language (Fouts 50). When Samuel Pepys met a chimpanzee in London 30 years later, he thought that this "apparently intelligent creature might be taught to speak, or make signs" (Fouts 27).

It has always been well known that chimpanzees could make noises, but it was not known that chimpanzees are almost completely silent creatures. They make noises only when something happens to excite them. In fact, in the wild, a group of chimpanzees can be feeding and make so little noise that an inexperienced observer can pass by without noticing that they are there (Gardner 29). Often, chimpanzee movie stars seem to do a lot of chattering on film. This is not natural; the chimpanzee is harassed off of the set until it vocalizes, and the sound is then dubbed in. In the wild, Jane Goodall reported five main vocalizations: pant-hoots, rough grunts, laughter, whimpers and screams (Gardner 30). Later, during cross-fostering experiments, people noticed that their chimpanzees made exactly the same noises. This meant that the vocal sounds which they can make are purely obligatory, or automatic, responses built into their system, not learned at all — much like our involuntary yelps of pain, or laughter (Gardner 48).

Because chimpanzees make sounds, it was assumed that teaching them language meant teaching them to speak. The first recorded effort to teach an ape how to speak was the attempt by William Furness in 1916. He attempted to teach a young orangutan how to speak. After several years, the young ape had learned only two words cup and papa, which he said with difficulty. Later, as he lay dying of influenza, he kept saying cup, cup, cup, cup, asking for a drink of water (Linden 14).

The next experiment was done by the Kelloggs in 1933. They had the idea that one could cross-foster a chimp, Gua, in the hopes that he would learn to speak just as a child does. Cross-fostering means that the young of one species are given to an adult of another to raise. For example, one might put duck eggs under a chicken, and the chicken would raise the ducks as chickens. In the case of the chimp Gua, he was cross-fostered into a human family. The Kelloggs thought that the difference between a pet and a human child was psychological more than physical. If one treats an animal with high-pitched voices, scratching behind the ears and other such behaviours, then it will obtain pet stimuli. However, if one treats an animal the way one treats a child, the animal will develop child stimuli. Therefore, if one treats a chimpanzee as a human child, then it should achieve an interest in learning and communicating. There must be no controlled training — all learning must be purely incidental. For example, if one wants the chimpanzee to learn how to use a fork, one slowly helps them to develop that skill during meal times. One does not take extra time during the day to give them reward/punishment training sessions. In simple form: if you wouldn’t do it to your child, don’t do it to a chimpanzee in your home. If you would do a certain thing to your child, do it to your chimpanzee. The Kelloggs discontinued their experiment after a short time, when it turned out that Gua was not learning how to speak, but their young son was learning the basic chimp vocabulary of grunts and hoots (Fouts 24).

There were no more experiments done with apes and language till thirty years later, when another attempt was made to teach a young chimpanzee called Vicki how to speak. The couple who decided to do this were Keith and Cathy Hayes. Vicki was cross-fostered. She had a bed, wore diapers, used a toilet, and wore clothes. However, after six years Vicki had mastered only four words with a very strong chimpanzee accent: cup, papa, mama, and up. This was better than Gua, but not nearly as good as the Hayes were hoping for. However, Vicki proved that this was not because of lack of intelligence. She proved herself capable of matching human performances in many kinds of problem-solving which involved intelligence (Linden 14).

Scientists were disappointed with these results of the chimpanzees’ language abilities. However, it was not known then that chimpanzees are incapable of speech. The apes’ vocal tract is very different from ours. Our larynx curves down at a 90û angle, as a consequence of our upright position, whereas an ape’s larynx slopes down much more gradually, due to their more hunched position. Another difference, and the main reason that an ape cannot speak, is that the base of the human tongue is lower, causing humans to make clearer vowel sounds. The chimpanzees, on the other hand, have their larynx higher up, making them incapable of most human vowel sounds. Also, humans have what is called a velar closure, or the ability to block off the nasal cavities and lungs. This enables us to make "g" and "k" consonants, and these are absolutely crucial to all human languages. Interestingly, a human baby’s and a chimpanzees vocal abilities are about the same. Because their larynx is high up, babies can swallow and breathe at the same time and are incapable of speech, as the larynx does not start to descend until 6 months of age. At that stage, they begin to be able to hold their breaths and choke. Also, they cannot control the tongue until they are about a year old (Savage-Rumbaugh 12).

The idea that chimpanzees could be taught to make gestural signs to communicate had been around for a long time. In 1747, a French philosopher, Julien Offroy de La Mettrie saw what was probably a chimpanzee. He thought that the ape had some "defects in his speech organs," and wrote a suggestion:

In 1925, Robert Yerkes, founder of the Yerkes Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, said:

The Hayes said that Vicki had made a unique gesture for each word she knew. When Dr. Allen Gardner, a psychologist, and Dr. Beatrix Gardner, an ethologist, watched a video of Vicki, they found they could understand her better when they turned the sound off. It was then they had the brilliant idea of teaching sign language to an ape (Patterson 28).

At that time, few people knew much about sign language. Many considered it not a real language, but simply a code for spoken language created for the deaf. Now, however, it is considered a true language, with its own rules and structures. Just like any spoken language, it is different everywhere you go. When you travel to China, for instance, you will encounter Chinese sign language. An American signer will not be able to understand Chinese signers, because they are different languages (Fouts 74). Many people confuse sign language, which involves the hands, face and body, with finger-spelling. In sign language, one sign can represent a whole concept, while finger-spelling is used only when signers want to spell out an uncommonly used word for which there is no sign (Freeman 128).

Sign language also works differently from spoken languages, especially English. It does not follow the same word order as English, and grammar is not found in the word order, or word endings, but in the facial expressions, and the places on body where the signs are made (Fouts 76). Sign language also has a much smaller vocabulary than English, as is the case with all oral languages. Sign language requires fewer signs to communicate an idea or fact. For example, in English we say, "I am going to the shop," but in American Sign Language (ASL) we say, "shop me" (Patterson 90). Most people think that (ASL) is an artificial language recently created for the deaf; however, this is not the case. ASL and other sign languages had been developed and used by the deaf for at least hundreds of years (Fouts 74).

When she was a graduate student, Dr. Laura Ann Petitto worked with one of the most famous chimpanzees, Nim, for three years. Since then, she has made a comparison between the rate and way that hearing children learn spoken language, and rate and way that deaf children learn sign language. She found that the way in which the hearing/speaking and deaf/signing children go through the process of learning language is exactly the same. They go through the vocal-babbling/manual-babbling period at about 7-10 months, the first-words/signs period at about 11-14 months, and all of the other key stages at exactly the same time. It is her theory that babies are going to learn language if they are in an environment where language happens. It does not matter to the brain whether it is sign language, or spoken language — children always learn it (Petitto website).

There are now dozens of signing apes in various centres, mainly in the United States, but also in Japan and New Zealand. Here I will outline four of the teaching projects.

Washoe is the chimpanzee selected by the Gardners for their project in 1966 — the first attempt to teach sign language to an ape. She was born in Africa, captured when ten months old and brought to the United States for biomedical research. She was named for the county in Nevada where the Gardners live.

Their plan was to cross-foster Washoe and raise her exactly like a deaf child. Washoe had her own trailer with a bedroom, a play room, and a kitchen. She had a spacious yard out front with monkey bars and a huge willow tree. Just like any other infant, Washoe wore diapers, ate in a high-chair, and was cuddled and loved. She was never alone except at night, when she was monitored with an intercom. To encourage her signing, no words were spoken at all in her presence. However, she was signed to continually. Within a few months there were four additional people working with her, one of whom was Roger Fouts.

She was never trained, but she was actively encouraged to learn signs — through repetition, by actively showing her signs for different things, and by moulding her hands into the correct signs. Often, she was not given something she wanted until she had signed it correctly. At first, like a deaf child, her signs were child-like versions of the actual sign (Fouts 81). At 20 months, she started making two-word combinations, like a human child (Linden 27). At 22 months, she knew 30 signs and was inventing new signs. For example, she invented her own sign for ‘bib,’ which the Gardners rejected, only to discover later that it was the correct ASL sign for ‘bib’ (Patterson 23). Washoe was learning most things without being taught them (Fouts 83). Dr. Fouts found life with three-year-old Washoe not much different from life with his two-year-old son — filled with conversation, arguments, negiotiation, apologies, bogeyman fears, and affection (Fouts 88). By the time she was five years old she knew 133 words. From the time she had even a small vocabulary of signs, she would dig into her "tool box" of signs, and put them together so that it worked. For example, she called her potty dirty good, and the refrigerator an open food drink; only later did she use the correct signs POTTY CHAIR and COLD BOX (Fouts 82).

When she began to sign, every word she signed was recorded. The Gardners wanted their experiment to be accepted by scientists, so they had very strict standards for determining when Washoe had learned a word: she had to sign it correctly fourteen days in a row, and this had to be observed and recorded by two people. If, on the fourteenth day, she made a mistake, they would start counting again. They also developed elaborate methods for testing her knowledge, called double-blind testing, which tried to eliminate all danger that they would be accused of unintentionally cueing Washoe with the correct answers (Patterson 23).

The Gardners first published the results of their work in 1969, but scientists were very critical of the project. When Washoe was around five years old, their government funds had run out and Washoe was too big for her space. In 1970, she was flown to the Institute for Primate Studies at the University of Oklahoma, run by Dr. William Lemmon, a clinical psychologist. This was the end of Washoe’s privileged life as a humanoid child. Fortunately, she was accompanied by Dr. Roger Fouts, who remained her human companion and her champion.

There were four other chimps at the Institute: Cindy, Booee, Bruno, and Thelma , all orphans. When Washoe arrived, she had not seen another chimpanzee since she was ten months old. When Dr. Fouts asked her WHAT THEY? Washoe replied BLACK BUGS. Washoe considered black bugs to be the lowest form of life (Fouts 23). At first, Washoe was very upset at being put in a cage without any toys or blankets. However, after a while Washoe began to see the chimps as the same as her and acted like their foster mother. None of them spoke ASL, but that did not deter her from signing to them. For example, when one of the chimps was upset, Washoe would go over and sign COME HUG, COME HUG, and comfort him or her. Or she would sign TICKLE CHASE, and goad one into the game. Or she would break up fights. Most of the others had been brought up in human homes as part of Dr. Lemmon’s cross-fostering experiments, and could understand a good amount of English and followed instructions readily. For example, if Dr. Fouts said "move that tire," they would do it. Washoe, on the other hand, had never heard spoken English, but she learned quickly and in no time at all she could comprehend as much spoken English as all of the other chimpanzees.

Dr. Fouts decided to try teaching sign language to the other chimpanzees. Every day, he and his wife Deborah sat with each chimp for half an hour. They discovered that each chimp had a completely different style of learning. Booee responded only to raisins, but his signing was not very reliable and he did not do well on tests, often sacrificing quality for quantity. Bruno did not care for food rewards and refused to participate until Dr. Fouts turned on the cattle prod which Dr. Lemmon insisted all the staff carry to control the chimps. As an experiment, he merely turned it on. At the sound, Bruno responded immediately by signing what he had been asked to sign and became one of the best signers, even though the cattle prod was never turned on again. Cindy responded only to affection, and Thelma responded to nothing, signing only when it pleased her and taking three times longer to learn a sign — yet Bruno and Thelma scored the highest on tests (Fouts 145).

In 1974 another chimpanzee joined the crew. Ally had been cross-fostered by one of Dr. Lemmon’s patients, and taught ASL by Dr. Fouts. Ally was depressed at being separated from his human family and behaved very submissively to Booee, the alfa male. Booee would offer food to Ally and then poke and prompt him until Ally signed YOU GIVE ME FOOD, and then would give him the food. After some time, Ally became a happy member of the group (Fouts 176).

Dr. Fouts wanted to find out if Washoe would pass on her signing to a baby. Her first baby, in 1976, was stillborn. Her second, in 1978, became ill just after birth and died. Washoe fell into a depression. She stopped eating and stopped signing. Dr. Fouts decided that he must get a foster child for her, or she might waste away. He found Loulis, a 10-month-old chimp at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Georgia. Washoe and Loulis bonded almost immediately. Dr. Fouts wanted Loulis to learn all his language from Washoe, so it was decided that no human would speak any sign language to him at all. Loulis made his first sign on the eighth day (Fouts 242). After 18 months, he knew 24 signs, and after 22 months he had learned 30 signs from them (Patterson 23). Altogether,Loulis learned his first 55 words from the Washoe and the chimps. Washoe was often observed actively teaching him. Once she brought a chair near, pointed at it, made the sign, and then moulded his hands into the sign CHAIR SIT five times. She did the same with the FOOD sign (Fouts 244).

Dr. Lemmon decided to sell off all the chimps at the Institute, and many were sent to medical labs. Dr. Fouts was determined to save as many chimps as he could, especially Washoe. In 1980, Central Washington University hired him as a full professor in the psychology department and agreed to develop a new facility for the chimps. Dr. Fouts was able to take only Washoe, Loulis, and one chimp from later experiments conducted by the Gardners — Moja. Soon they were joined by two more of the Gardners’ signing chimps, Tatu and Dar. For thirteen years they had to survive in a few rooms in the psychology building. In 1993, they moved to their new facility, where they live today. They live as enriched a life as captive chimps could lead, with trained staff and volunteers thinking up activities to keep them from being bored, and signing with them. They watch their meals being prepared and participate in the menu planning. They continue to sign among themselves and with the people around them. Washoe now knows over 1000 signs (D. Sharrock). Their signing activities continue to be monitored and studied.

The work done by Dr. Fouts and his wife has never been fully accepted by the scientific community, partly because they developed a deep personal relationship with the chimpanzees. They were constantly criticized for cueing the chimps and for misinterpreting their gestures. When Deborah was doing her Masters degree on the chimps, her advisors were hostile to the project. They suggested that she videotape the chimpanzees when they were alone, convinced that there would be nothing to observe. The results were amazing. The chimpanzees signed to each other all the time. And it was not just about food — TIME EAT; they discussed magazines, clothes, makeup, and many other things, including things going on outside their window. The chimpanzees were talking like humans (Fouts 303). The videotapes showed that earlier attempts to record signing activity missed most of the signing which was going on, because the person recording can observe and record only one conversation at a time.

Koko is a gorilla who was born in the San Francisco Zoo on the fourth of July in 1971. Her full name, Hanabi - Ko, means "fireworks child." One year later, Dr. Francine Patterson began Project Koko. She was inspired by the Gardners’ project and, after taking a course in ASL, she received permission to teach the young gorilla.

After a few days, Koko began to make approximations of signs that she was seeing around her. Dr. Patterson and her volunteer assistants began to be more encouraging, taking every opportunity to sign to Koko. For example, instead of just giving her milk formula, they would wait until she signed drink. If she did not, then they would prompt her, by signing what’s this? If she still did not understand, they would mould her hands into the sign drink, and then wait for her to do it by herself. Also, any time Koko tried to make a sign she would be corrected, encouraged, and praised. Unlike the Washoe project, Dr. Patterson signed and spoke simultaneously to Koko. There was another difference between how Dr. Patterson and the Gardners were teaching. The Gardners were more interested in keeping a controlled scientific experiment, whereas Dr. Patterson was more interested in seeing what Koko did with language.

All this work had taken place at the San Francisco Zoo, in front of gawking zoo-goers. Dr. Patterson hated this, and in 1972 installed a trailer in the back of the Gorilla Grotto. In 1973, Koko was moved to a larger trailer at Stanford University. Three years later, a male companion arrived and was taught ASL as well. Because they live so close, they developed a sibling relationship and still live together as good friends, communicating through signs.

Because Dr. Patterson was receiving funds for Project Koko, she did have to be scientific about her records and logs, and there were also tests. Dr. Patterson used pretty much the same criteria for recording signs and the same system of the double-blind testing that the Gardners used. The one change was to require that a sign be made fourteen times in one month instead of on fourteen consecutive days, since Koko strongly resisted repetitive questions and drilling (Patterson 75). Also, to see just what Koko was comprehending, Dr. Patterson would run tests during which she both spoke, and signed, or, she would only sign, or she would only speak.

When Koko did not know the sign for an object, she would use the signs she did know to get the point across. For example, before she knew the sign for woman, she used the sign for lip.

Koko, because she had been spoken to "bilingually," could understand even more English than ASL. Right now, Koko has a vocabulary of about 1,000 signs (Cavalieri 59). However, she can understand several times that number of spoken English words. In some cases, Koko and Michael are more familiar with language than some human beings. Both gorillas will sign more slowly, and, if needed, repeat their sentences several times to help a person understand. They have also tried to teach others as they themselves were taught. For example, once Michael kept on signing CHASE repeatedly to his human companion. When he did not get a response, he took her hands, and moulded them into the sign for chase, and then pushed her to get her moving.

Koko and Michael still live with Dr. Patterson, supported by the Gorilla Foundation and are both signing. They are going to move to a sanctuary in Hawaii.

Nim is a chimp who was born at the University of Oklahoma in 1973. When he was three months old, the University lent him to Dr. Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia University in New York, for a sign language experiment.

It was decided that, while an infant, Nim would be brought up in a family. But when he was nine months old, Dr. Terrace decided that it would be better if they had a more intensive and objective method. He decided that Nim should go to school. He thought that there would be less to distract Nim, and it would be much easier for Dr. Terrace to monitor his progress. Dr. Terrace had one been a student of Dr. B.F. Skinner, and came to think that the only way to get Nim to sign was to use the reward system. He forbade anyone to treat him like a human being in any way. So, every weekday, Dr. Terrace drove Nim to the Columbia University, where his teachers were waiting. Then he was subject to two three-hour training sessions conducted in a windowless cell which was about eight feet by eight feet. Dr. Terrace had designed this cell after one of Dr. Skinner’s rat testing cells. He had over 60 different teachers over three years.

Project Nim was actually one of the least scientific of the ape language experiments. There were no tests done at all (Gardner 194). The only study which was done was to videotape some of the lessons and record Nim’s signing. In 1977, Dr. Terrace watched these three hours of videotape. He saw that Nim was imitating what the teachers said, and was always snatching things. Also, he saw that Nim often did not wait for the teachers to stop signing before he would start signing in reply. But what struck him most was the fact that Nim was not signing spontaneously. He seemed to sign just to get the thing which he wanted. For the full three years of the project, Dr. Terrace had believed that Nim was signing and using language intelligently, and that he had learned over 100 signs and was creating primitive sentences (Fouts 274). Suddenly, he changed his mind. He said,

Dr. Terrace was very surprised at this, but he should not have been. After all, for three years Nim was kept in an environment where there were no opportunities to sign spontaneously. And, he believed Skinner’s theory that animals will not do anything unless they are given a reward. Nim was not taught, as Washoe and Koko were. It was predictable that he signed only to get things; that is how he was taught. It is not surprising that he did not sign spontaneously; no one engaged him in general conversations. The "interrupting" would have come as no surprise if Dr. Terrace had been familiar with ASL — 30 percent of the time, ASL speakers do overlap each other, for the simple reason that you can see and sign at the same time where you cannot speak and hear at the same time. He was not taught but trained, and then criticized by Dr. Terrace as a "trained animal act."

Dr. Terrace sent Nim back to the Institute at Oklahoma University. Nim knew at that time about 125 different signs. Just before sending Nim back, though, Dr. Terrace announced Nim’s failure to the world. Again, Dr. Terrace made a mistake — he generalized Nim’s ‘failure’ to all chimpanzees who were learning sign language. Any attempts to make a rebuttal by the Gardners or by Dr. Patterson were drowned out in the media. However, the real rebuttal came from Nim himself. The moment he arrived at the Institute, he began to talk with the humans and spontaneously with Ally, Booee, and Bruno. The three of them would just sit and sign to each other. Nim had proven Dr. Terrace wrong, but, unfortunately, Dr. Terrace and his followers refused to believe it (Fouts 277).

Shortly after Nim’s arrival, Dr. Lemmon decided to sell all of the chimpanzees, including Nim, to the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates. Nim, Ally and many others were shipped to New York. After a public outcry, Ally and Nim were released. Nim was rescued by the American writer Cleveland Amory, who took him to Black Beauty Ranch, his animal sanctuary in Texas. Ally was sent to a lab in New Mexico, and disappeared, probably killed in an insecticide study (Fouts 286).

Nim is still living at Black Beauty Ranch. Unfortunately, the staff have very limited signing abilities, but Nim understands English. Recently, he used ASL to tell the staff that he had a toothache (Black Beauty Ranch e-mail).

Chantek is an orangutan who learned sign language. He was born at the Yerkes Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1978, when Chantek was 9 months old, he was brought to the University of Tennessee by Dr. Lyn Miles, whose goal was to investigate the mind of the orangutan. He was raised by a small group of care-givers who spoke ASL. He learned his first sign within one month, and eventually learned 150 different signs, the same as the vocabulary of a very young child. Chantek learned the names for people, places, things to eat, actions, objects, animals, colours, pronouns, location, attributes, and emphasis (Cavalieri 47).

His signing was spontaneous, and non-repetitive. Not only was it quite clear that he was not imitating his teachers, but he used his signs to meet his needs. Right away, when he began to have a small vocabulary, he started to combine them into several different combinations such as coke drink, after drinking his coke, pull beard while pulling the beard of one of his care-takers through the fence, and time hug, when he wanted a hug (Cavalieri 47).

One indication of the ability to use symbolic language is the ability to point. It was thought also that this was unique to humans because apes have not been observed to point at things in the wild. However, Chantek began to point when he was two years old without having been taught. At first, he just showed his care-takers things. Later, he began pointing where he wanted to be tickled, and then he could answer questions such as where hat?, which different?, and what want? by pointing to the correct object. As the number of signs that Chantek knew grew, he began to form more complex phrases such as White cheese food- eat for cottage cheese.

Chantek would also do what many children do who have a limited number of signs or words — he would over-extend the meaning of signs to get a point across. For example: he would use the sign dog for a picture of a dog, a dog which he saw in the rearview mirror of a car, and the sound of a dog barking on the radio; he also called the sound of a helicopter dog, presumably it sounded like a dog to him. Chantek was very inquisitive and inventive. When he did not know a sign, he would offer his hands to be moulded, but he would also make up a sign for a thing he did not know. For example, NO TEETH to say he would not use his teeth when his teachers were playing with him; EYE DRINK for contact lens fluid.

Chantek would also sign for things which were not present. He would often ask to go look for his pet squirrel and pet cat in the garden, or he would ask to go for a ride in the car. Chantek would also deceive his care-takers and teachers by using his sign language. For example, he found out that by signing DIRTY, he would be allowed to go to the bathroom, but instead of using the toilet he would play with the washing machine, soap, or the dryer. Sometimes, when Chantek was talking, his articulation would become sloppy, but when asked to sign better, he would look carefully at the observers, and sign very slowly and emphatically in order to make every sign very clear (Cavalieri 49).

In 1986, when Chantek was 8 years old, he became too big for his living quarters, and was sent back to Yerkes. He and Dr. Miles were separated for 11 years, until 1997, when he was moved to the Atlanta Zoo and she was invited to come and continue to teach Chantek. Their reunion was a very emotional one for both. He is now slowly rebuilding his vocabulary (Web).

The controversy created by all of the work with apes and sign languages led some scientists to look for a way to teach apes a kind of language which could be analyzed with scientific objectivity. They created languages using lexigrams, or word symbols, either on tokens or keyboards, and taught them to chimpanzees. The most famous ones are: Sarah, Lana, Kanzi, and Ai.

Sarah was the first chimpanzee to learn a language invented just for her by Dr. David Premack, a behavioural psychologist who worked at the University of California. It was made up of plastic tokens which were placed on a magnetic board. Each token, called a lexigram, was a particular colour and shape, and would represent a word. For example: a blue triangle was the symbol for banana. There were strict grammar rules which Sarah had to follow. The tokens had to be in a particular order, or else she would not achieve the desired result, which was usually food dispensed by the machine. Because the tokens were not always with Sarah, there were limited times of the day which she could communicate with the humans.

Sarah was born in the wild, and raised with the other chimpanzees at the university. She was five years old when her training began in 1968. Most of her lessons took up only a small portion of the day. The rest was spent on watching her cage being cleaned, meals, visits from many people, listening to records, watching television, and time in her outdoor cage.

Sarah learned all that she was taught successfully, including how to use her ‘if/when’ token correctly, but the experiment was still criticized because people accused Sarah of having learned how to use the tokens the same way a pigeon learns how to peck at certain buttons. Apparently, Dr. Premack himself does not see any difference between human and pigeon learning (Linden 180). The Sarah experiment ended after a few years.

Besides learning how to use her tokens, Sarah learned many other thing unrelated to her token system. She could lie. Sarah was involved in an experiment during which she watched while one of the experimenters placed two containers on the ground. S/he put fruit in one of the containers, and none in the other. One of two other trainers then came out and asked Sarah in which container was the food. Sarah would point to the filled container. One trainer (the "friendly" trainer) would take out the fruit and share it with her. The other trainer (the "unfriendly" trainer) wore dark glasses and a bandit’s mask) would take out the fruit eat it himself in front her. This was repeated several times, and soon Sarah would point to the empty container when the "unfriendly" trainer came out.

Sarah could also identify solutions, correctly most of the time, to problems she saw on a screen, such as someone trying to get out of a locked cage, or trying to play a record player which was unplugged. These same kind of problems are solved correctly by three-and-a-half-year-old children only half of the time. Another very advanced form of thinking was the fact that she was not fooled into thinking that a tall thin glass held more water than a short wide glass. This test fools most young children under the age of six (Premack 143).

Lana is a chimpanzee who learned a language using lexigrams on a keyboard. The language was invented by a Dr. Duane Rumbaugh, a behavioral technician who worked at the Yerkes Regional Primate Center in Atlanta. He had studied the work of Dr. Premack, the Gardners and Dr. Patterson. Like Dr. Premack, he wanted a system which could be monitored, but also a system which was less awkward than Sarah’s. He invented lexigrams which stood for words and made them into computer keys which, when pressed would light up and activate the computer. Lana would have to follow strict grammatical rules to achieve the desired result, which was usually food given out by the trainer rather than from the machine. The language was called Yerkish, after the center where Lana was to be learning.

Lana was born at the Yerkes Regional Primate Center, in 1970. She began use the keyboard when she was two years old, but before that she had been trained in various tasks involving puzzles, and simple lexigrams. She was not tested until 20 months of training had gone by.

Unlike Sarah, Lana lived in her training environment. Every day, she was taught by "behavioural technicians" who spent time with her, modelled procedures, and corrected her mistakes. She was taught how to structure questions and statements, and also learned how to label quantities with "more" or "less." After Lana had learned the lexigrams for objects, she sped forward on her own. She was always asking for names of new objects, and arranging the lexigrams she knew in a way that got the point across. For example, before she knew the name for "orange," she called it the "apple which is orange." Also, spontaneously, she began to use the lexigram "this" as a pronoun for things for which she did not know the names. Eventually, she learned 150 lexigrams (Savage-Rumbaugh 18). Everyone who worked with Lana assumed that she would only speak only when she wanted something but, to their surprise, Lana was the one who initiated the first conversation they had (Rumbaugh 191). The experiment was discontinued after a few years.

The reason Lana was able to make all of these innovations is that she simply had to push buttons on a keyboard, which allowed more spontaneous communication. It was not as easy for Sarah was because every time Sarah wanted to say something, she had to dig around in her bag till she found the correct token, then arrange them. The reason that the project was somewhat more successful than Sarah’s, according to the Gardners, is that Lana spent all her time around her keyboard and that she was around her trainers all the time, rather than dependent on a machine to dispense her rewards. Still, Lana has been criticized for having only simple reflex associations between the lexigram and the reward (O’Grady 569).

Kanzi is a bonobo who was born at the Yerkes Primate Research Center in 1980. He was born to a young, inexperienced mother who let an older chimpanzee, called Matata, nurse him when he was only half an hour old. Matata never gave him back and Kanzi’s mother never made any fuss about it (Savage-Rumbaugh 9). Six months later, Matata was transferred to the Language Research Center at Georgia State University for a project led by Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and, of course, Kanzi came too.

Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh thought that apes’ hands were too clumsy to be able to speak sign language clearly, or use any made-up gesture languages (Savage-Rumbaugh 14). She wanted to train Matata to use a computer similar to the one which had been used for Lana. That keyboard had been modified so that two other chimpanzees, Sherman, and Austin, could communicate easily with each other and with humans. Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh hoped to teach Matata the symbols in a way that not only looked like language, but also communicated her needs and her feelings. However, Matata’s results were disappointing. In two and a half years, she had learned less than any other chimpanzee (Savage 17).

She was sent back to the Primate Research Center to become pregnant again, and Kanzi was left behind. When Matata had gone, Kanzi started to spontaneously use the keyboard to say what he wanted, and what he was going to do next. This came as a complete surprise because, when Matata had been in the lab trying to learn, Kanzi would be jumping all over the lab, on the keyboard and on Matata, and, overall, just being a pest. But it seemed that he had learned everything Matata had failed to learn, without having been taught in any way (Savage 26). Also, not only had he learned the lexigrams; he could also understand spoken English and follow spoken instructions. For example, one of the trainers would ask, "can you scare Matata with the mask?" Kanzi would put on the mask, then go and parade up and down in front of Matata’s cage. Many researchers starting on the job took a year or more to become as adept on the keyboard as Kanzi was. Kanzi would use the keyboard to talk in all of the tenses. He could talk about what he wanted at that moment, or, what he planned to do next, or anything which had happened earlier in the day.

Kanzi’s sister Panabisha used the keyboard to pass on gossip or news about what had happened earlier that day. For example, Panabisha and Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh were walking in the forest, when suddenly Panabisha thought of something. She took out her paper version of the keyboard, and said "fight," "mad," and "Austin" in different orders, suggesting that there had been a fight. Later, when Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh made inquiries, it turned out that two chimps had fought over who would use the joystick which was used as part of the training program. Panabisha had heard this going on from her cage 200 feet away (Web article).

Though it was clear that Kanzi could understand spoken English and his lexigrams, what he could say was limited because of how the system was set up. There were over 256 different lexigrams. The more there were, the longer it took to find them, so Kanzi’s sentences were usually made up of two to three words. However, though Kanzi himself did not make long sentences, he could understand long and complex instructions, such as, "You can have some cereal if you give Austin your monster mask to play with." Kanzi would immediately go and get his mask, give it to Austin, then ask for his cereal. Also, when told : "Lets go to the trailer and make a water balloon," Kanzi would go to the trailer, get a balloon, and fill it up with water. He was given a test made up of 600 sentences, all of them designed so that he could not possibly have heard them before. This made most of them quite silly, such as "Pour the lemonade into the Coke," "tickle Liz with the umbrella," and "tickle Rose with the bunny." He performed most of the instructions correctly (Web). The Kanzi project is still going on.

Ai is a chimpanzee at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University who learned language slightly differently from Sarah, Lana and Kanzi. The project started in 1978, when Ai was one and a half years old. Dr. Tetsuro Matsuzawa introduced Ai to a complex language of lexigrams, as well as Kanji and Arabic numerals. Ai will be called into the computer lab and given a puzzle. The puzzle could be to figure out a new lexigram, or colour, or number. The steps will be repeated until Ai understands. Sometimes, Ai knows that she did not do well on a particular experiment, and will ask (by her behaviour) to do the experiment over. The computer gives controlled scientific feedback, as Dr. Matsuzawa says:

Ai has shown that chimpanzees can classify colours and forms just as we humans do. Ai has learned to identify eleven different colours, both in lexigrams and Kanji characters. She has learned 42 different lexigrams and all 26 letters of the English alphabet, 41 Kanji characters, and 10 Arabic numerals (from 0 - 9). Ai can also, if shown a lexigram for one second, reconstruct it using the basic components which are mainly geometric shapes (Matsuzawa 196) .

Ai was the first chimpanzee to describe numbers using Arabic numerals. She can memorize a sequence of up to three numbers and then reproduce the sequence on her own. Ai understands the concept of large and small numbers. When asked to put three or more numbers in ascending order, Ai can do it. Ai can also count much faster than many humans. She can be shown several dots on a screen and, within a couple of seconds, press the correct number on another screen. Once they found out how easy that was for her, they put different coloured dots on the screen, showed her the Kanji character for a certain colour, and she would then have to count how many dots of that colour there were and press the correct answer. Also, when shown objects, Ai can determine how many of them there are, what they are, and what colour they are in a single operation (e.g., six blue pencils) (Matsuzawa 198).

Ai is now 22 years old and is still learning with Dr. Matsuzawa. She is the best student of the eleven chimpanzees at the Institute.

When the Gardners first suggested that Washoe was using sign language, there was a fierce negative reaction. Scientists would even go out of their fields to attack and rebut the Gardners’ claims. They were accused of treating Washoe too much like a human child. They were accused of not having scientific methods, even though the Gardners were very careful about being scientific. Washoe was accused of simply repeating signs which she had seen other people use (how else are you supposed to learn?). They were accused of simply misinterpreting Washoe’s gestures and the data, to make it look like Washoe was using language. The Gardners’ reply asked a very simple question:

The belief that language is unique to humans has been around all through history. It is even in the Bible, and in interpretations of the Bible. This is one reason that people object to the idea that other animals might be able to achieve language. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, it seems, has been accepted by the body, but not the mind, because if it had been fully accepted, there would be no ecstatic amazement that an ape had been able to learn language; the only reaction would be, "isn’t it neat that we are so connected with the apes that they, too, can learn language."

Sarah’s, Lana’s and Kanzi’s use of lexigrams has also been dismissed as not language, even though it is obvious that they knew what each symbol meant, and that they used it to meet their needs and even gossip. It was not good enough for the critics.

The apes were also criticized, because people say that they are not using correct English word order. These people seem to forget that English is one of the few languages which do have a defined word order. In many languages, such as Greek, Russian, Polish, and Latin, it does not matter in what order one puts the words. More than that, the critics seem to forget (either that they did know, or to research the fact) that ASL does not have the same rules as English. They ignore the fact that Kanzi used proper English word order when he used the keyboard combined with his own invented gestures to communicate with humans, and the different and precise lexigram word order he was taught when he used the keyboard to meet his wants (Savage-Rumbaugh 65).

The critics not only dismiss all suggestions that apes have acquired language. They also do not accept as valid the observations of other human-like behaviours associated with language.

Those who work with the apes are convinced they have a sense of humour and play with language to make jokes. The critics dismiss these as mistakes. For example, once, Koko had her best human friend, Barbara Hiller over for the day. Koko decided that she was going to be obstinate when Barbara asked her to sign drink (made by making the hitch-hiker’s sign and putting the thumb to the lips). drink was one of Koko’s very first signs, and she has used it thousands of times, but now she would sign only sip thirsty sip, apple sip, and virtually anything but drink. Finally, at the end of the day, Barbara pleaded, "Koko, please, please sign drink for me." Koko then leaned back against the wall, and did the sign perfectly, except she put her thumb to her ear (Patterson 77). In another case, Koko was being asked the colour of her white blanket and replied RED. This exchange went on repeatedly as the questioner, with increasing exasperation, persisted in trying to obtain the correct answer. At last, Koko picked a tiny piece of red lint off her blanket, held it up, signed red and smiled (Patterson 144).

The critics deny that the apes have a sense of time, saying that they do not understand the concept or time even though they can refer to past, present and future correctly. The same can probably be said for most humans.

Swearing is something done by all of the apes, but the critics dismiss this kind of signing as nonsense. Each ape has come up with his or her own sets of words to call people or things when they are angry at them. Koko, for example would call people dirty, or dirty toilets, or, even bird. Others would use the word for STUPID or BLACK BUGS or DEVIL.

There is no mutual agreement as to what exactly language is. All agree that it is more than simply communication because insects, birds, whales, cats, and all other animals communicate with each other, but that is not called language. Beyond that there is a lot of confusion. Linguists seem to use the term "language" to mean anything they want. It does not seem to be enough to follow consistent rules of grammar, and know what the signs, or words, or symbols mean. Apes can do this, and yet, according to many, they do not have language. According to some definitions, the Gardners could claim that Washoe had language after the first year, but others are so exacting that nothing that Washoe could ever do would meet the requirements (Linden 32).

One thing that cannot be denied is that there are many parallels between the developing language of a child, and the developing language of an ape. Those who have worked with these apes believe that the apes reach the language ability of a two-and-a-half- to four-year-old child in vocabulary and syntax. Their intelligence is often like a much older child’s or even an adult’s.

Both children and apes at first over-extend the meaning of words and categories, such as Chantek’s application of the sign DOG. Both create combinations of words or signs to communicate actions or a desire, such as cat bite, or want drink, and both become consistent in word order to show who or what is doing the action. Both request or comment on something which is not present, such as a car ride, a particular toy, a person, or a pet.

Both apes and children use language to express emotion. Koko would often sign sadness about the death of her kitten All Ball, and still does when she sees a photograph of the cat in her album. They can also sympathize with other apes or humans. After having learned of the death of a human friend’s baby, Washoe signed cry. Both children, and apes can ask all of the "wh" questions (who, what, where, when, why), although apes rarely use "why" — only Koko and Kanzi seem to use it. Both apes and children will make up words or signs to express things that they do not know how to say. Some example of phrases made up by a child are, "barefoot head" to describe a bald man, "giraffe bird" to describe an ostrich, and "fireplace wall shelf" to describe a mantelpiece. Some examples that Koko made up are, elephant baby to describe a Pinocchio doll, finger bracelet to describe a ring, white tiger to describe a toy zebra, and red corn drink to describe pomegranate seeds.

Both apes and children learn to lie. And both talk to themselves a lot, both in play and to help themselves do something. For example: When Washoe needed urgently to go to the potty, she would make a mad dash across the yard signing hurryhurryhurryhurry to herself along the way. Also, she would sign QUIET to herself when she was stealing cookies or creeping into a forbidden part of the yard. All the apes sign to themselves when they are looking at picture books or playing with dolls; often they want to do it privately and will either stop when observed or move to a private space to continue. .

Dr. Patterson also says that the most criticized projects were Nim and Sarah. These lasted only a short time, and there was no strong bond developed between the teachers and the ape because of the desire for objectivity. But, Dr. Patterson says, language cannot be learned unless the subject develops a strong bond, and is in a good environment (Patterson 210). A good example of what happens when someone simply expects a child to learn language without being loved and cared for is the story about King James IV of Scotland. About the year 1500, the king wanted to see what language a child would develop if he was just left alone. He assumed it would be Hebrew, because that was the language of Adam and Eve. He ordered that a baby be put in a room and that no one was to enter, except to feed him, and no one was to speak to him. Of course, the child did not develop any language at all. He died for lack of care, company, and love (Fouts 91). What do we know from that experiment? We know that a baby is not born with a language built in; the baby has to be around other speaking people. And yet, many linguists who criticize the ape experiments seem to expect that apes should learn language without human help in order to prove that they are capable of language.

The language issues are still not resolved. As Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh says in her 1998 book about Kanzi,

Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh has invited critics to come and observe Kanzi, but none of the critics have ever shown up.

Another reason that progress is difficult is because the different experimenters all criticize each other as well (Linden 294, Patterson 210).

Although many people don’t like the idea, the word "human" now needs to be re-defined.

It was once thought that humans were the only tool-making animals. That has changed. The apes know how to make tools, both simple and sophisticated. A simple tool which the chimps use is the twig to "fish" termite out of a stump. Jane Goodall has seen chimps making these poking sticks out of branches which they strip of leaves and bark (Cavalieri 12). A more sophisticated tool is the one they use to crack nuts. They place one rock on the ground, place the nut on top of the rock, and crack it by hitting it with another rock. This by itself is very sophisticated, but they take it one step further. If the base rock is wiggly, they will jam another rock underneath it to steady it. Also, if they find a particularly good set of rocks, they will take them along as they search for food (Matsuzawa 201). As Dr. Louis Leakey has said,

Even though there is no agreement about the apes and language, the ape experiments have had some positive outcomes

One of these outcomes is that, thanks to Dr. Fouts and others, many autistic children can now speak. Dr. Fouts had heard that autistic children respond to facial expressions, gestures and being touched, and wanted to try using sign language with them. He was given permission to work with a nine-year-old autistic boy who communicated with no one, made no eye contact and was considered a hopeless case. When David tried to turn the handle to get out of the room, Dr. Fouts moulded his hands into the sign open. When David started to run down the hall, Dr. Fouts stopped him and moulded his hands into run. Soon, David was making these signs on his own. He stopped screaming and rocking, and started making eye contact. Within two months, he had a small sign vocabulary and would combine them to make short sentences, such as you me run. And only a few weeks later, an extraordinary thing happened. David began to speak.

It is believed that autistic children cannot process both sight and sound at the same time. They are very good at motor movements and sight at the same time, but will hide their faces in the wall when they scream. According to this theory, they cannot learn to speak because they become confused and distressed when asked to say the word for a thing they are being shown. So why, then, did David start to talk? Speech is the result of very precise motor movements of the tongue. Motor movements of the fingers and the tongue are controlled in the same part of the brain. This means that the two movements are not different, but related. So, after David started to sign, he simply took that one step further, and began to speak. Today ASL training is used regularly to help many autistic children (Fouts 190).

Another system for helping autistic children, and also mentally challenged children and adult victims of stroke who have lost their ability for spoken language, is Sarah’s tokens (Premack 150). This has met with reasonable acclaim, and yet, if, when Sarah was using it people said she is not using language, can it be said that the people using it now have language? Lana’s Yerkish keyboard is also being used with the mentally challenged. (Rumbaugh 273).

There is a group of people who have created an organization called the Great Ape Project. These are people who think that Apes are so like humans that we cannot perform medical experiments on them. These people are fighting for basic rights for the great apes (Cavalieri 4):

The Great Ape project is responding to all of the horror which the great apes go through in medical research, such as the horrible conditions of housing, and the cruelty of the experiments. After Drs. Fouts and Goodall went for a tour of one of the labs, Dr. Fouts asked Dr. Goodall how the people could stand it in there. Dr. Goodall replied with a quote from Shakespeare: "All pity choked by custom of fell deed" (Fouts 318). Jane Goodall also has said:

When I set out to do this project, I was just going to do it on Koko, and what she learned and how she was taught. I did not even know about all of the rest of the apes. I did not know about all the arguments and battles going on about language and the apes, and language itself.

After my research, I have come to think that the apes have achieved language. I am also not surprised that they have. If the theory of evolution is truly how nature works, then why is it so surprising that apes have the capacity for language? It is natural! What I also think is so extraordinary about the critics is that the theory of evolution seems to have been accepted for the body, but not for the mind. People would still like to think that we are highly superior to any other animal, and that language is unique to humans. When that belief is challenged, it often makes us wonder what it is that does make us so special. It has been proved that we are not the only tool-making animal. We are not the only weapon-making animal. And now the fact that we are the only animal which has language is being challenged makes some people feel lost in the animal kingdom.

This is a partial list of the signs made by which met the Gardners' strict test. They had to be made correctly on fifteen consecutive days. If on the fourteenth day she made it incorrectly, or did not make it at all, then the researchers would begin the count again.

The signs in italics are the ones that Koko had in common with Washoe. (Patterson 88-89)

Nim's vocabulary is listed from left to right in the order in which he learned (Michel 58).