Kanzi

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See Kanji for the Chinese characters that are used in Japanese
Kanzi
Born October 28, 1980 (1980-10-28) (age 27)
Flag of the United States Georgia State University

Kanzi (born October 28, 1980), is a male Bonobo who has been featured in several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo throughout his life, Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born to Lorel and Bosandjo at Yerkes field station at Emory University and moved to the Language Research Center at Georgia State University, Kanzi was stolen and adopted shortly after birth by a more dominant female, Matata. As an infant, Kanzi accompanied his mother to sessions where she 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.[1][2] 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 two hundred more. When he hears a spoken word (through headphones, to filter out nonverbal clues), he points to the correct lexigram.

Also notable are Kanzi's ability to understand aspects of spoken language and associate it with lexigrams, his ability to understand simple grammatical sentences, and possibly his invention of novel vocalized words.[1][2] According to a Discover article, Kanzi is an accomplished tool user.[3]

Kanzi is Panbanisha's adopted brother. Kanzi, his mother, and sister now live at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. Kanzi is the alpha male of the resident community of Bonobos. His mother, Matata, is the chief leader (in the matriachal society of bonobos, a male's position is primarily determined by the position of the females he is related to). According to the Smithsonian magazine, Kanzi "has the mien of an aging patriarch - he's balding and paunchy with serious, deep-set eyes." [4]

[edit] Examples of Kanzi's behavior

  • In an outing in the Georgia woods, Kanzi touched the symbols for "marshmallows" and "fire." "Given matches and marshmallows, Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with the matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick."[5]
  • Paul Raffaele, at Savage-Rumbaugh's request, performed a Maori War Dance for the Bonobos. This dance includes thigh-slapping, chest-thumping, and hollering. Almost all the bonobos present interpreted this as an aggressive display, and reacted with loud screams, tooth-baring, and pounding the walls and floor. All but Kanzi, who remained perfectly calm, and conveyed in Bonobo language (interpreted by Savage-Rumbaugh to Raffaele) that he knew that no threat was meant, but that the performance should be apart from the other bonobos so as not to upset them. So a private performance in another room was successfully, peacefully and happily carried out.[5]
  • Sue 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 started vocalizing the word "yogurt" in an unknown "language"; his sister, who could not see the yogurt, then pointed to the lexigram for yogurt.[5]
  • Kanzi's accomplishments also include tool use and tool crafting. Kanzi is an accomplished stone tool maker and is quite proud of his ability to flake Oldowan style cutting knives. He learned this skill from Dr. Nick Toth, who is an anthropologist with the Stone Age Institute in Bloomington, Indiana. The stone knives Kanzi creates are very sharp and can cut animal hide and thick ropes.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Savage-Rumbaugh, S., & Lewin, R., (1994). Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-58591-2. 
  2. ^ a b c Mitani, J. (1995). "Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind". Scientific American 272 (6). 
  3. ^ "Ape at the Brink" (September 1994). Discover. 
  4. ^ Raffaele, Smithsonian, November 2006.
  5. ^ a b c Raffaele, P (November, 2006). "Speaking Bonobo". Simithsonian. 

[edit] Further reading

  • de Waal, Frans (2005). Our Inner Ape, ISBN 1-57322-312-3.
  • Raffaele, Paul (2006), "The Smart and Swinging Bonobo", Smithsonian, Volume 37, Number 8 (November 2006 -- a general article about bonobos).

[edit] External links