Editing Great ape language (section)

=== Kanzi ===
{{main|Kanzi}}
[[File:Kanzi in the indoor test apparatus.jpg|thumb|Kanzi has learned hundreds of arbitrary symbols representing words, objects, and familiar people (including the generic "Visitor").]]
Kanzi, a [[bonobo]], learned to communicate with a [[lexigram]] board at first by eavesdropping on the lessons researcher [[Sue Savage-Rumbaugh]] was giving to his adoptive mother. Kanzi used the [[lexigram]] board by pushing symbols that stand for words. The board was wired to a computer and symbols were vocalized out loud once pressed.

One day, Rumbaugh used the computer to say to Kanzi, "Can you make the dog bite the snake?" It is believed Kanzi had never heard this sentence before. In answering the question, Kanzi searched among the objects present until he found a toy dog and a toy snake, put the snake in the dog's mouth, and used his thumb and finger to close the dog's mouth over the snake. In 2001, [[Alexander Fiske-Harrison]], writing in the ''[[Financial Times]]'', observed that Kanzi was "asked by an invisible interrogator through head-phones (to avoid cueing) to identify 35 different items in 180 trials. His success rate was 93 percent."<ref>Fiske-Harrison, Alexander [http://fiskeharrison.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/talking-with-apes/ 'Talking With Apes'], ''Financial Times'', Weekend, 24–25 November 2001</ref> In further testing, beginning when he was {{frac|7|1|2}} years old, Kanzi was asked 416 complex questions, responding correctly over 74% of the time. Kanzi has been observed verbalizing a [[Kanzi#Examples of behavior and abilities|meaningful noun]] to his sister.<ref>[[Sue Savage-Rumbaugh]], ''Smithsonian'' magazine, November 2006</ref>

Kanzi relies highly on the lexigrams for communication, and frequently uses them to specify where he wants to go, or an item he wants to have. He does this by expressing his goal (location or object) first, and his action (go, chase, carry, give, etc.) last. This notified researchers that Kanzi's way of communicating was different from that of spoken English, especially because Kanzi would communicate many of his action words using simple gestures. In addition, Kanzi is frequently seen linking two action words together using the lexigrams, like "I Tickle", "Chase Hide", or "Chase Bite". These word combinations are not necessarily structured in a way that humans would use spoken English, but they closely resemble lists, consisting of preferred actions, in preferred order of Kanzi's social play. Because of this inconsistency of Kanzi's use of language with the spoken English language, many question whether Kanzi's understanding of English "crosses the boundary with true language".<ref name=":0"/>