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Kanzi (born October 28, 1980), also known by the lexigram (from the
character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
), is a male
bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...
who has been the subject of several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo throughout her life, Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude. Despite his achievements in the use of language, Kanzi could still not approach the levels of an average 3-year-old child.


Biography

Kanzi was born to Lorel and Bosandjo at Yerkes Field Station at
Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
in 1980. Shortly after birth Kanzi was stolen and adopted by a more dominant female, Matata, the matriarch of the group. In 1985, Kanzi was moved to the Language Research Center at
Georgia State University Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the largest institution of hig ...
. He was later relocated, along with his sister, Panbanisha, to the Great Ape Trust, in
Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moine ...
. The ill-fated facility, founded in 2004 by local businessman, Ted Townsend, closed after losing funding, experiencing allegations of neglect, and a flood. In 2013, the Ape Cognition and Conservation Initiative (ACCI), under the direction of Jared Taglialatela, a professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and Bill Hopkins, a professor at Georgia State University, took over the facility. When the ACCI took over Kanzi's care in 2013, he was severely obese due to mismanagement of his diet and activity. His new caretakers changed Kanzi's diet to a more species-appropriate one and increased his opportunities for physical activity. Kanzi has since lost over seventy-five pounds. As an infant, Kanzi accompanied Matata to sessions where Matata was taught language through keyboard lexigrams, but showed little interest in the lessons. It was a great surprise to researchers then when one day, while Matata was away, Kanzi began competently using the lexigrams, becoming not only the first observed ape to have learned aspects of language naturalistically rather than through direct training, but also the first observed bonobo to appear to use some elements of language at all. Within a short time, Kanzi had mastered the ten words that researchers had been struggling to teach his adoptive mother, and he has since learned more than 348, which he can also combine for new meaning. When he hears a spoken word (through headphones, to filter out nonverbal clues), he points to the correct lexigram. He can initiate communication using the lexigrams. Sue Savage Rumbaugh, in 2006, claimed Kanzi understands about 3,000 spoken words. According to a ''
Discover Discover may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album * ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine Businesses and brands * DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation'' * D ...
'' article, Kanzi is an accomplished tool user. Kanzi's adoptive mother, Matata, was believed to be in her mid- to late- 40s when she died in June 2014. In the
matriarchal society Matriarchy is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege and control of property. While those definitions apply in general En ...
of bonobos, a male's position is primarily determined by the position of the females he is related to. Matata was the group's chief leader so his status as the highest ranking male was established by being adopted as her "son". According to Smithsonian Magazine, Kanzi "has the mien of an aging patriarch – he's balding and paunchy with serious, deep-set eyes."Raffaele, ''Smithsonian'', November 2006. This description is confirmed by a full-page color photograph of Kanzi in the March 2008 ''
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widel ...
'', and a full-page black-and-white photograph in ''Time'' magazine.


Examples of behavior and abilities

Kanzi's behavior and abilities have been the topic of research published in scientific journals, as well as reports in popular media.


Research programs

When he was eight years old, Kanzi was a subject of a research program in which his ability to respond to spoken requests was compared with that of a two-year-old human child called Alia. The study took nine months to complete. Kanzi and Alia were given 660 spoken instructions, asking them to deal with familiar objects in novel ways. Kanzi responded correctly to 74 percent of the instructions, Alia to 65 percent. Another study, designed and carried out by archaeologists Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth, aimed to compare Kanzi's cognitive and mechanical abilities with those of early human ancestors who made and used Early Stone Age tools (probably
Homo habilis ''Homo habilis'' ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly ...
), such as Oldowan stone flakes and cores (a core is the rock from which a flake has been removed). In this study, Schick and Toth showed Kanzi how to flake stone, producing a sharp edge that could be used to cut through a rope in order to gain access to a food reward. After modeling the flaking behavior on a variety of occasions, the researchers set up each experiment by placing a food reward inside a box with a transparent lid which was held closed by a length of rope. Kanzi would then be led into an enclosure where the box was located and provided with the stones needed for flaking (known as
chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a ...
or
flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start ...
). Over the course of this multi-year study, Kanzi not only learned how to flake, he also developed his own method by throwing the cobbles onto hard surfaces to make a flake, as opposed to the hand-held percussion method that was modeled for him. With the many sharp flakes he produced, Kanzi was able to cut through the rope to gain access to the food reward. However, the flakes he produced and used were more crude than those produced by Early Stone Age humans. A similar study on the flaking abilities of chimpanzees failed to recreate the findings with Kanzi. The authors suggest that the discrepancies in findings are due to the differences in rearing backgrounds of the subjects. Whilst Kanzi spent a significant portion of his life around humans and being trained by them (leading to a high level of enculturation), the chimpanzees in the recent study were not trained or demonstrated how to make or use flakes (or in any other human behaviours). This may explain why Kanzi was able to develop flaking after observing humans, and the chimpanzees in the recent study were not.


Anecdotes

The following are anecdotes, rather than experimental demonstrations. * In an outing in the woods in
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...
, Kanzi touched the symbols for " marshmallows" and "fire". Susan Savage-Rumbaugh said in an interview that, "Given matches and marshmallows, Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with the matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick." ''The Telegraph'' has published photographs of Kanzi putting together a fire for food. * Paul Raffaele, at Savage-Rumbaugh's request, performed a
haka Haka (; plural ''haka'', in both Māori and English) are a variety of ceremonial performance art in Māori culture. It is often performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted or chanted accompani ...
for the Bonobos. This Māori war dance includes thigh-slapping, chest-thumping, and shouting. Almost all the bonobos present interpreted this as an aggressive display, and reacted with loud screams, tooth-baring, and pounding the walls and the floor. Kanzi, who remained calm, communicated with Savage-Rumbaugh using bonobo vocalizations; Savage-Rumbaugh interpreted these vocalizations, and said to Raffaele, "he'd like you to do it again just for him, in a room out back, so the others won't get upset." Later, a private performance in another room was carried out. * Savage-Rumbaugh has observed Kanzi in communication to his sister. In this experiment, Kanzi was kept in a separate room of the Great Ape Project and shown some yogurt. Kanzi made some vocalizations that his sister could hear; his sister, Panbanisha, who could not see the yogurt, then pointed to the lexigram for yogurt, suggesting those vocalizations may have meaning. * In one demonstration on the television show ''
Champions of the Wild ''Champions of the Wild'' is a documentary about animals and the effort to protect them and their habitat. The show aired on Discovery Channel in 1998 and 2003, and was narrated by Andrew Gardner. The series was initially co-produced by Omni Film ...
'', Kanzi was shown playing the arcade game
Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
and understanding how to beat it.


Language

Although Kanzi learned to communicate using a keyboard with lexigrams, Kanzi also picked up some
American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expre ...
from watching videos of Koko the gorilla, who communicated using sign language to her keeper Penny Patterson; Savage-Rumbaugh did not realize Kanzi could sign until he signed, "You, Gorilla, Question", to anthropologist Dawn Prince-Hughes, who had previously worked closely with
gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four ...
s. Based on trials performed at Yerkes Primate Research Center, Kanzi was able to identify symbols correctly 89–95% of the time. Kanzi cannot speak in a manner that is comprehensible to most humans, as bonobos have different vocal tracts than humans, which makes them incapable of reproducing most of the vocal sounds humans can make. Nonetheless, it was noticed that every time Kanzi communicated with humans with specially-designed graphic symbols, he also produced some vocalization. Later, it was discovered that Kanzi was producing the articulatory equivalent of the symbols he was indicating, although in a very high pitch and with distortions. According to the research of Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Kanzi "can understand individual spoken words and how they are used in novel sentences". For example, the researcher asked Kanzi to go get the carrot in the microwave, Kanzi went directly to the microwave and completely ignored the carrot that was closer to him, but not in the microwave. In another example, a researcher gave the task, "feed your ball some tomato". Alia, a human 2-year-old, did not know what to do, but Kanzi immediately used a spongy toy
Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observan ...
pumpkin as a ball and began to feed the toy.Wise, Steven M. "Why Animals Deserve Legal Status." ''Higher Education'', February 2, 2001, B13. Quoted in "Animals Deserve Legal Rights." ''Animal Rights'', edited by Shasta Gaughen. Contemporary Issues Companion. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2005. ''Opposing Viewpoints in Context'' (accessed December 1, 2018). http://link.galegroup.com.librarynt.occc.edu/apps/doc/EJ3010344210/OVIC?u=okccc_main&sid=OVIC&xid=e0a8a0ce.


Limitations

Although Kanzi is considered to be the best case for apes acquiring language-like capabilities, his sentences were not equivalent to that of a 3-year old child. His
semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
,
syntactic In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency) ...
and morphological abilities showed significant differences. For example, Kanzi did not use the word "strawberry" the same way a human child would. When he used "strawberry" it could mean a request to go to where the strawberries grow, a request to eat some, it could also have been as a name, and so on. Kanzi also showed no ability in the use of
function words In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. ...
, nor could he make use of morphology, such as indicating the plural form of a noun. Lastly, Kanzi did not display
recursion Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematic ...
, meaning that there was an upper bound to the length of his sentences that cannot be exceeded.


See also

* Ape language * Evolution of language * ''
Human Ape ''Human Ape'' is a 2008 National Geographic documentary film on the genetic and evolutionary origins of human behavior, and covers the genetic and behavioural similarities and differences between humans and other great apes. The award-winning ...
'', a National Geographic documentary film * List of individual apes * Yerkish Other animals used in language studies: * Akeakamai *
Alex (parrot) Alex (May 1976 – 6 September 2007) was a grey parrot and the subject of a thirty-year experiment by animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg, initially at the University of Arizona and later at Harvard University and Brandeis University. When Ale ...
*
Batyr Batyr (May 24, 1970 – August 26, 1993) was an Asian elephant claimed to be able to use a large amount of meaningful human speech. Living in a zoo in Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union, Batyr was reported as having a vocabulary of more than 20 phr ...
*
Chantek Chantek (December 17, 1977 – August 7, 2017), born at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, was a male hybrid Sumatran/Bornean orangutan who mastered the use of a number of intellectual skills, including American S ...
* Koko * Kosik * Nim Chimpsky * Nyota * Panbanisha * Washoe


References


Further reading

* Joseph, John E., Nigel Love & Talbot J. Taylor (2001). ''Landmarks in Linguistic Thought II: The Western Tradition in the 20th Century'' (London & New York: Routledge), chapter 15: "Kanzi on Human Language". * de Waal, Frans (2005). ''Our Inner Ape'', . * Raffaele, Paul (2006), "The Smart and Swinging Bonobo", ''Smithsonian'', Volume 37, Number 8 (November 2006—a general article about bonobos).


External links


60 Minutes Australia ''Talk to the Animals'' October 2011 featuring Kanzi
*

TED talk in part about Kanzi
Video documentary site
by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh containing a documentary featurin



{{Great ape language, state=expanded Apes from language studies Ape Cognition and Conservation Initiative Animal intelligence 1980 animal births Individual bonobos