First sign-language chimp dies

[horuhe00]

Washoe, a female chimpanzee said to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died of natural causes at the research institute where she was kept. Washoe, who first learned a bit of American Sign Language in a research project in Nevada, had been living on Central Washington University's Ellensburg campus since 1980. Her keepers said she had a vocabulary of about 250 words, although critics contended Washoe and some other primates learned to imitate sign language, but did not develop true language skills.
She died Tuesday night, according to Roger and Deborah Fouts, co-founders of The Chimpanzee and Human Communications Institute on the campus. She was born in Africa about 1965.

http://foru.ms/t6366484-first-sign-language-chimp-dies.html#post40379001

 

[USincognito]

 

[Ave Maria]

Awww, how sad. But then again, all animals must face death some day.

 

[NgNm]

I was not aware that chimps lived into their 40s.

 

[horuhe00]

Anyone care to post their thoughts on animals that we can have conversations with and they answer back?

 

[Museveni]

Anyone care to post their thoughts on animals that we can have conversations with and they answer back?

Reminds me of a cartoon drawing. There a fundie saying "There are more and more people questioning Darwins sick theories" and next to him is a chimp pointing at him going "Yeah. No way are we related to this moron"