I would like to propose a study. While I was reading about Koko, the gorilla, today I became curious about her communication abilities. I haven't researched intently about the subject and my reading hasn't gone much farther than the wikipedia article, but I think I'll definitely be looking into this more later. Anyway, what I became interested in the ability for one gorilla to communicate with another through sign language. From what I've read Koko did this a little with another gorilla name Micheal, who didn't have as strong a grasp on sign language as Koko did. So there is one instance, but I'd be interested in seeing a group of gorillas communicating with each other through sign language. Another interesting concept that was brought up in the wikipedia article was that they were hoping that Micheal and Koko would mate and then teach their children sign language. That would truly be a novel thing to come about. The idea is incredibly interesting when you think about how that would effect the development of the gorilla pod in the long run. In five or six generations when you have the entire pod speaking in sign language it would be interesting to see how complex their communication would become.

This entire makes me ponder the first human language to come about. We truly take language for granted, and it is really quiet an amazing thing. Our ability to communicate with each other is what really sets us above animals evolutionary. Without our ability to think abstractly and communicate ideas rather than just facts we wouldn't be able to invent anything. Perhaps we would have a few simple tools, but nothing complex. It is interesting to think about and something we will probably never know. At some point we developed language and since then we have been able to do anything. Truly a turning point in our species development.


I used the word truly three times in this post... I should put my thesaurus back on my desk.