Apes That Demonstrate Understanding
Non-human animals have been recorded to have produced behaviors that are consistent with meanings accorded to human sentence productions. (A production is a stream of lexemes with semantic content. A language is grammar and a set of lexemes. A sentence, or statement, is a stream of lexemes that obeys a grammar, with a beginning and an end.) Some animals in the following species can be said to "understand" (receive), and some can "apply" (produce) consistent, appropriate, grammatical streams of communication. David Premack and Jacques Vauclair have cited language research for the following animals:
- Common Chimpanzees
- Bonobos
- Gorillas
- Orangutans
Read more about this topic: Great Ape Language
Famous quotes containing the words apes and/or demonstrate:
“It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous for its prey.”
—Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)
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—Lawrence Balter (20th century)