Great Ape Language in Fiction
Fantasy writer Edgar Rice Burroughs invented a fictitious great ape language called Mangani in his Tarzan books. This imagined language included such words as Kreegah! ("Beware!") and Tarmangani ("Great White Ape"). These words and others are sometimes used by cartoonists, and for facetious slang. (See Kreegah bundolo).
Writer Michael Crichton used the concept of great ape language in his 1980 novel Congo, in which a fictional gorilla named Amy communicates extensively with her keeper using signs. This is also shown in the movie Congo.
The X-Files has an episode titled Fearful Symmetry in which a gorilla named Sophie communicates extensively with humans via signs.
The 1987 film Project X, starring Matthew Broderick, had a chimpanzee, named Virgil, use of signs as an important part of the plot.
In the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, two apes used signs to communicate with humans and with each other. Although the apes' brains have been enhanced in the film, there is an orangutan named Maurice shown to use signs prior to any enhancement.
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Famous quotes containing the words ape, language and/or fiction:
“What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just that shall man be for the superman: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bully her, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)