Washoe Signs

In 1966, professors at the University of Nevada, Beatrix and R. Allen Gardner wanted to discover a way for animals to communicate better with humans. They thought the best animal for this would be a chimpanzee. The Gardners bought a chimp and named her Washoe. After being with Washoe for a while, and doing many experiments to try to communicate with her, they decided that ASL would be the best way to communicate (Patent 116). In A little over four years, Washoe used one hundred thirty-two signs. She new different signs, such as flower, doll, mine, dirty, good, listen, and so much more (Patent 118). Washoe would use her signs to have conversations with her owners
“What you want?”/ “Orange, orange.”/ No more orange, what you want?”/ “You go car gimme orange. Hurry” (Patent 217).
To be able to learn different signs shows that Washoe is intelligent enough to learn a new language, but to be able to have a conversation is a
Koko learned over five hundred signs and can make statements “three to six sings long” (Patent 128). Just like Washoe, Koko has been able to use her learning of ASL to hold conversations with his owners and asks for things. However, Koko has learned to express her thoughts and feelings through ASL. In 1988, Koko signed to Patterson that she really wanted to give birth to a gorilla baby (Patent 128). Animals have emotions and express their feelings in many different ways; that is one part of being intelligent. To be able to learn a language and use it to hold a conversation is another part of intelligence. To be able to use both of those concepts shows even greater intelligence that humans ever thought. For a long time humans did not know for sure how animals felt, but with ASL we have finally started to understand. For Koko to tell us she wanted to have a baby takes humans into even further proof that animals are very