Being hugged by a lowland gorilla is something you never forget.

Look around, there is quite a body of scientific work on Koko and the
late Michael.

Koko and Michael, the most famous of the signing gorillas, have been
studied for decades by hundreds of researchers.

I had the honor of meeting Koko once (half the staff were Deadheads,
and we knew each other from shows.)

Her signing was difficult to read at first, but as I adjusted, it was
clear that she was indeed communicating with me. I kept my syntax
simple, and we chatted about cats, my beard, and how I smelled
(evidently a very important topic in gorilla land.)

What impressed me most was her capacity to name things. She labeled
me "Hairy Face Man" (at the time I had long hair and a full beard.
She also called me "Almost Gorilla" while laughing.

Being hugged by a lowland gorilla is something you never forget.

On 22 Aug 2005 11:44:37 -0700, "Noone Inparticular"
<unreve89@hotmail.com> drained his beer, leaned back in the
alt.atheism beanbag and drunkenly proclaimed the following

As charming and truly amazing as their apish (pun intended) capacities
WRT to vocabulary, this bit about chimps capacity for language and
syntax is highly debatable. What evidence is there for this? Reports in
the popular media about signing apes talking with their captors are
almost entirely a load of hooie.

Koko and Michael, the most famous of the signing gorillas, have been
studied for decades by hundreds of researchers.

I had the honor of meeting Koko once (half the staff were Deadheads,
and we knew each other from shows.)

Her signing was difficult to read at first, but as I adjusted, it was
clear that she was indeed communicating with me. I kept my syntax
simple, and we chatted about cats, my beard, and how I smelled
(evidently a very important topic in gorilla land.)

What impressed me most was her capacity to name things. She labeled
me "Hairy Face Man" (at the time I had long hair and a full beard.
She also called me "Almost Gorilla" while laughing.

Being hugged by a lowland gorilla is something you never forget.

Look around, there is quite a body of scientific work on Koko and the
late Michael.

On 22 Aug 2005 11:44:37 -0700, "Noone Inparticular"
<unreve89@hotmail.com> drained his beer, leaned back in the
alt.atheism beanbag and drunkenly proclaimed the following

As charming and truly amazing as their apish (pun intended) capacities
WRT to vocabulary, this bit about chimps capacity for language and
syntax is highly debatable. What evidence is there for this? Reports in
the popular media about signing apes talking with their captors are
almost entirely a load of hooie.

Koko and Michael, the most famous of the signing gorillas, have been
studied for decades by hundreds of researchers.

I had the honor of meeting Koko once (half the staff were Deadheads,
and we knew each other from shows.)

Her signing was difficult to read at first, but as I adjusted, it was
clear that she was indeed communicating with me.

I kept my syntax
simple, and we chatted about cats, my beard, and how I smelled
(evidently a very important topic in gorilla land.)

What impressed me most was her capacity to name things. She labeled
me "Hairy Face Man" (at the time I had long hair and a full beard.
She also called me "Almost Gorilla" while laughing.

Being hugged by a lowland gorilla is something you never forget.

Look around, there is quite a body of scientific work on Koko and the
late Michael.

--

Douglas E. Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.

On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:08:09 -0000,
Herb Huston <huston@radix.net> wrote:

In article <1124721315.428901.319410@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Cyde Weys <cyde@umd.edu> wrote:
}The more I learn of our closest hominid ancestors the more I am
}impressed. A full-grown chimpanzee is the functional intellectual
}equivalent of a two-year old human. And a two-year old human ain't
}exactly stupid. A chimpanzee can be taught a vocabulary of hundreds of
}words. Even though chimps don't have the vocal cords necessary for
}speech, their brains are already wired for language and syntax. It's
}truly amazing. Creationists will deny our relatedness to chimps by
}saying that they don't really talk, they just mimic sign language
}(although they actually do a lot more than just mimic it). If only
}chimpanzees had the correct vocal setup (they already have the correct
}brain setup), it would be impossible to deny that we are related to
}them, as they would be capable of holding a conversation like a
}two-year old!

Don't you watch _Nova_? Several years ago they ran an episode in which
Kanzi, a bonobo, conversed over the telephone with a human who was calling
from another building. Kanzi "speaks" not with sign language but by
pushing keys on "Yerkish" keyboard (he was at the Yerkes Regional Primate
Center). His keyboard has lexigrams, which correspond to words. The
keyboard is connected to a speech synthesizer, and that gives Kanzi his
"voice." For the telephone demonstration, they connected the speech
synthesizer to the mouthpiece of a telephone.

The human asked Kanzi what food treat she should bring to him, and his
answer was "M&M's."

I don't know how impressive that is, to be honest. If I say "where's your
collar" to my dog, he immediately runs to the place where we hang it up and
barks. If I say "dog" with a little urgency he jumps up on the back of the
couch and barks like crazy, looking for the canine. I wonder if this sort
of thing is just some sort of word association.

<snip>

On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:08:09 -0000,
Herb Huston <huston@radix.net> wrote:

In article <1124721315.428901.319410@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Cyde Weys <cyde@umd.edu> wrote:
}The more I learn of our closest hominid ancestors the more I am
}impressed. A full-grown chimpanzee is the functional intellectual
}equivalent of a two-year old human. And a two-year old human ain't
}exactly stupid. A chimpanzee can be taught a vocabulary of hundreds of
}words. Even though chimps don't have the vocal cords necessary for
}speech, their brains are already wired for language and syntax. It's
}truly amazing. Creationists will deny our relatedness to chimps by
}saying that they don't really talk, they just mimic sign language
}(although they actually do a lot more than just mimic it). If only
}chimpanzees had the correct vocal setup (they already have the correct
}brain setup), it would be impossible to deny that we are related to
}them, as they would be capable of holding a conversation like a
}two-year old!

Don't you watch _Nova_? Several years ago they ran an episode in which
Kanzi, a bonobo, conversed over the telephone with a human who was calling
from another building. Kanzi "speaks" not with sign language but by
pushing keys on "Yerkish" keyboard (he was at the Yerkes Regional Primate
Center). His keyboard has lexigrams, which correspond to words. The
keyboard is connected to a speech synthesizer, and that gives Kanzi his
"voice." For the telephone demonstration, they connected the speech
synthesizer to the mouthpiece of a telephone.

The human asked Kanzi what food treat she should bring to him, and his
answer was "M&M's."

I don't know how impressive that is, to be honest. If I say "where's your
collar" to my dog, he immediately runs to the place where we hang it up and
barks. If I say "dog" with a little urgency he jumps up on the back of the
couch and barks like crazy, looking for the canine. I wonder if this sort
of thing is just some sort of word association.

<snip>

I was under the impression that at least *some* of those apes were in fact using ASL
(with a narrower vocabulary than H. sap. users, to be sure, as we'd expect of a
two-year-old speaker.)