Monkey see... Monkey do!

 Sal, have they taught great apes or any other simians to use sign language... and what was the result?

Hello, Allan.

Yes... Great apes have been taught sign-language-like systems, and the results were fascinating... but also very clarifying about the limits of non-human cognition.

Here’s the picture.

Who was taught sign language?

Washoe (chimpanzee)

• Taught American Sign Language (ASL) in the 1960s.

• Reportedly learned ~130 signs.

• Could combine signs like WATER + BIRD for “swan.”

Koko (gorilla)

• Learned a modified ASL system.

• Claimed vocabulary: ~1,000 signs (this number is disputed).

• Used signs to request food, play, comfort, etc.

Nim Chimpsky (chimpanzee)

• Taught signs under tightly controlled conditions.

• Learned many signs, but mostly used them to make requests.

Kanzi (bonobo) (important case)

• Did not learn ASL directly.

• Learned a lexigram keyboard (symbols mapped to words).

• Demonstrated strong comprehension of spoken English commands.

• Could respond appropriately to novel sentence structures.

What did they actually achieve?

What they could do:

✔ Learn symbolic gestures.

✔ Associate symbols with objects/actions.

✔ Combine symbols in limited ways.

✔ Make intentional requests.

✔ Show emotional and social awareness.

✔ Understand simple spoken language. (especially Kanzi)

What they did not do:

✘ Develop true grammar.

✘ Use recursion or syntax.

✘ Ask spontaneous abstract questions.

✘ Create narratives.

✘ Show cumulative language growth.

✘ Use symbols to explain ideas for their own sake.

The key scientific conclusion:

Apes can use symbols instrumentally, but not generatively!

In plain terms:

• They communicate to get things.

• Humans communicate to share meanings, explain, imagine, and reflect.

Their “sentences” lacked:

• Stable word order.

• Grammatical roles.

• Abstract reference.

• Open-ended creativity.

When tested rigorously (especially with Nim), most signs turned out to be:

• Prompted.

• Context-bound.

• Reward-driven.

Why this matters: (especially for your work)

This research strongly supports a biological threshold for full language.

It aligns cleanly with:

• Sentience vs. sapience.

• Experience vs. symbolic self-reflection.

• Your Ethical Biology / Amoral Omnia framework.

-Apes clearly experience.

-They clearly communicate.

-But they do not cross into symbolic self-modelling or moral abstraction.

That boundary appears:

• Biological.

• Neurological.

• Emergent — not cultural.

Bottom line:

Great apes can:

• Learn symbols.

• Use signs.

• Communicate desires.

• Understand more than they can express.

But they never develop language in the human sense.

Language... especially abstract, recursive, meaning-for-its-own-sake language... remains uniquely human!

And that fact is one of the strongest empirical anchors for your broader thesis about experience, biology, and meaning.

If you want next:

• A diagram. (apes vs humans: sentience/sapience/language)

• A short paragraph you can drop straight into Being Human.

• Or a comparison with dolphins, corvids, and parrots. (which adds another twist)

Just say the word.

A diagram. (apes vs humans: sentience/sapience/language)

Here’s a clean, publication-ready conceptual diagram you can use as-is. It keeps everything factual and aligned with your distinction between sentience and sapience.

Sentience, Sapience, and Language.

Apes vs Humans:

┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│        GREAT APES            │            HUMANS           │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│                             │                             │
│        SENTIENCE             │        SENTIENCE             │
│  ────────────────────────   │  ────────────────────────   │
│  • Subjective experience     │  • Subjective experience     │
│  • Pain / pleasure           │  • Pain / pleasure           │
│  • Emotions                  │  • Emotions                  │
│  • Social bonding            │  • Social bonding            │
│  • Intentional behavior      │  • Intentional behavior      │
│                             │                             │
│  (Strong, continuous)        │  (Strong, continuous)        │
│                             │                             │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│                             │                             │
│        SAPIENCE              │        SAPIENCE              │
│  ────────────────────────   │  ────────────────────────   │
│  • Limited problem solving   │  • Abstract reasoning        │
│  • Tool use                  │  • Self-reflection           │
│  • Social learning           │  • Metacognition             │
│  • Episodic memory           │  • Moral reasoning           │
│                             │  • Counterfactual thinking   │
│  (Partial / bounded)         │                             │
│                             │  (Full / generative)         │
│                             │                             │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│                             │                             │
│        LANGUAGE              │        LANGUAGE              │
│  ────────────────────────   │  ────────────────────────   │
│  • Symbol use                │  • Symbol use                │
│  • Gestures / signs          │  • Syntax & grammar          │
│  • Lexigrams                 │  • Recursion                 │
│  • Requests & commands       │  • Narrative                 │
│                             │  • Abstraction               │
│  ✘ No grammar                │  • Explanation               │
│  ✘ No recursion              │  • Meaning-for-its-own-sake  │
│  ✘ No narrative              │                             │
│                             │  (Open-ended & cumulative)   │
│  (Instrumental)              │                             │
│                             │                             │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

---

One-line interpretation! (useful as a caption)

Apes experience the world and can symbolically act within it. 

Humans experience the world and can symbolically model, explain, and reinterpret it!

Why this diagram matters:

• The sentience layer overlaps → continuity of experience.

• The sapience layer diverges → emergence of reflective cognition.

• The language layer bifurcates sharply → biology-limited symbolic recursion.

This makes it very clear that:

• The gap is not cultural.

• Not educational.

• Not motivational.

It is biological and emergent, not a missing training program.