Primate Use of Sign Language
Sign language and computer keyboards are used in primate language research because non-human primate vocal cords cannot close fully, and they have less control of the tongue and lower jaw. However, primates do possess the manual dexterity required for keyboard operation.
Many researchers into animal language have presented the results of the studies described below as evidence of linguistic abilities in animals. Many of their conclusions have been disputed.
It is now generally accepted that Apes can learn to sign and are able to communicate with humans. However, it is disputed as to whether they can form syntax to manipulate such signs.
Read more about this topic: Great Ape Language
Famous quotes containing the words sign and/or language:
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)