You see lots of strange videos on social media these days but the video that has impacted me most was one from the 1990s which showed an ape following instructions from and communicating with a human. This concept astounded me and I was inspired to discover more about this incredible creature.
Kanzi is a bonobo, a species from Congo which is closely related to the chimpanzee. They are very intelligent and of all animals that exist, they are most similar to human, when looking at limb proportions and way of walking.
‘Kanzi’ is Swahili means ‘buried treasure’ and this seems very adequate for an ape that knows several hundred words (basic English vocabulary entails approx 800) and can understand long sentences. Aged 39, he lives in Georgia State University’s Language Centre in which experts and researchers dedicated to language development are based. Originally, this was solely for children’s language acquisition but after discovering that apes could be taught as well, they developed expertise in this field.
Originally, they had tried to teach Kanzi’s foster mother, Matata, but they had little luck. Kanzi was always with her but they assumed that he was too little to learn. Aged two and a half, it was made abundantly clear that he had picked up what they were teaching as he said the word ‘apple’ for the first time. Among the staff at the centre, Kanzi had a particularly strong relationship with Dr Sue Savage Rumbaugh who has worked with him for the majority of his entire life before she left to to pursue her research in Iowa.
Kanzi has lived among many other bonobos during his time in the centre. One was Panbanisha who also had developed similar language skills but sadly she died in 2012. In his free time, he enjoys camping with his teachers.
How do they actually teach him though?
The centre has adopted numerous teaching methods which change and develop as more research is revealed. These methods rely on testing and correcting to revise the new words covered and to help consolidate what he has learned. One way involves a teacher saying a word out loud and the bonobo touching the picture symbol on the lexigram. This generates an electronic voice which says the word. While the symbols on the lexigram bear no similarity to the word itself, Kanzi has managed to memorise all 256 symbols and uses the device to communicate with his carers. In one video I watched, he selected the symbols for Matata and Good, which showed him wanting to say ‘I want to see Matata and I will be good.’ A similar method entails someone saying the word out loud and getting him to the picture to which it corresponds. Like a child’s language acquisition, praise is very important to help them learn. On the lexigram, they therefore have the words ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ Kanzi also tends to prepare his meals with his teachers to help his language development.
Having received criticism about their teaching methods, the centre have also emplaced various precautions to properly examine the bonobos’ improvement. They do this by varying the speakers when assessing him and his teachers often wear masks to hide their expressions in order not to influence him.
Despite the centre’s undeniable progress with Kanzi and many other of the bonobos in their care, research into ape’s language acquisition began many years ago...
In 1947, Keith and Katherine Hayes, American psychologists, began teaching human speech to a young chimpanzee named Vicky. Their methods likened the methods uses to teach a baby. Unfortunately, however, after 6 years, she could only say ‘mama’, ‘papa’ and ‘cup’ and so it seemed like their research had reached a dead-end.
A couple of decades later in 1966, a couple tried again to research this field but this time instead of teaching human speech, they focused on American Sign Language. This theoretically would overcome chimpanzees’ inability to vocalise. A chimpanzee, named Nim, managed to learn 85 signs in their care and this greatly impressed researches at the time. However in 1979, the real success of their project was questioned by Dr. Herbert Terrace who claimed that the ape did not really understand the signs but simply shadowed the teacher signing. Following this, research in the field wained for a while.
Watching Kanzi is fascinating and poses so many questions. With specific training, could humans potentially communicate with animals? What could we learn from the animals? If they could communicate with us, what messages would they give us?
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