Kanzi looks over his shoulder after a shower in 2005. (Image credit: WH Calvin via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0))
Kanzi, a male bonobo with exceptional language skills, has died at age 44, according to the Ape Initiative, a primate conservation and research center in Des Moines, Iowa, where he lived since 2004.
At an early age, Kanzi, born at the Emory National Primate Center in Atlanta, Georgia, accompanied his adoptive mother, Matata, to language lessons. Although Matata showed no interest in learning from her human caretakers, Kanzi surprised them by quickly mastering lexigrams—symbols that correspond to words—that researchers tried to teach his mother, much like how children learn language by listening to their parents.
Since the 1970s, primatologists have used lexigrams to study the thinking and communication of chimpanzees and bonobos. Using a special lexigram keyboard, the great apes interact with their caregivers by pressing various buttons or pointing to pictures.
The researchers taught Kanzi more than 300 lexigrams, and he combined them to create new meanings—an important aspect of symbolic thinking that experts previously thought was only possible in humans.
In addition, Kanzi could understand and respond to requests in spoken English. In a study conducted when Kanzi was 8 years old, he and a 2-year-old were given 660 spoken instructions. Kanzi outperformed the toddler, indicating that his linguistic abilities were at least on par with the toddler.
Kanzi works with a lexigram board with a human caretaker in 2006.
In another study, Kanzi learned American Sign Language (ASL) simply by watching videos of Koko, a gorilla who had previously been trained to use ASL. When his sister Panbanisha was behind a wall, Kanzi made the sound for “yogurt,” and Panbanisha understood it.
Although Kanzi demonstrated unusual language abilities for a primate, he did not speak in the same way as humans. Researchers believe this is due to anatomical differences between the vocal tracts of chimpanzees and humans. However, a 2024 study published in Scientific Reports suggests that chimpanzees' vocal abilities may be underestimated, as these apes can create new sounds and have the brain activity needed for speech.
In addition to language skills,
Sourse: www.livescience.com
