Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh is a primatologist most famous for her work with two bonobos, Kanzi and Panbanisha, investigating their apparent use of "Great Ape language" using lexigrams and computer-based keyboards. Until recently based at Georgia State University's Language Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, she has now moved to the Great Ape Trust of Des Moines, Iowa.
Savage-Rumbaugh's view of language - that it is not confined to humans and is learnable by other ape species - is very controversial within linguistics, psychology and other sciences of the brain and mind. For example, the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker strongly criticised the position of Savage-Rumbaugh and others in his award-winning The Language Instinct, arguing that Kanzi and other non-human primates failed to grasp the fundamentals of language.
