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It's referenced in the article and I've never heard about it before: a gorilla, named Koko, that talks using over 1,000 ASL signs. https://www.youtube.com/watc
by smnscu 9y ago
It's referenced in the article and I've never heard about it before: a gorilla, named Koko, that talks using over 1,000 ASL signs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk
- OskarS 9y agoDon't believe the hype. She does know an impressive number of signs to signal things, but there's essentially no evidence that she has any kind of "language" in the sense of being able to use grammatical structures, and there's certainly no evidence of Chomsky-style linguistic recursion. You can teach animals to signal different things for different mental states (like teaching a drug-sniffing dog to sit down when he smells drugs) through conditioning, and it's seems like Koko's abilities are a very advanced version of that. She is absolutely an impressive animal, but she has no true language. That, alas, is still the exclusive domain of humans.
- smnscu 9y agoI've just heard about it and my mind was understandably blown, but thank you for putting things in perspective.