Koko (born July 4, 1971) is a lowland gorilla who, according to
Francine 'Penny' PattersonDr. "Penny" Patterson is an American researcher who claims to have taught a modified form of American Sign Language which she calls "Gorilla Sign Language" or, GSL to a gorilla named Koko....
, is able to understand more than 1,000 signs based on
American Sign LanguageAmerican Sign Language is the dominant sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
, and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English. She has lived most of her life in
Woodside, CaliforniaWoodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It uses a council-manager system of government.Woodside is among the wealthiest communities in the world....
, although a move to a sanctuary in Maui, Hawaii has been planned since the 1990s.
Koko is short for the name
Hanabi-Ko, meaning "fireworks child" in Japanese (a reference to her date of birth,
the Fourth of JulyIn the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
).
Dr.
Koko (born July 4, 1971) is a lowland gorilla who, according to
Francine 'Penny' PattersonDr. "Penny" Patterson is an American researcher who claims to have taught a modified form of American Sign Language which she calls "Gorilla Sign Language" or, GSL to a gorilla named Koko....
, is able to understand more than 1,000 signs based on
American Sign LanguageAmerican Sign Language is the dominant sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the English-speaking parts of Canada, and in some regions of Mexico...
, and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English. She has lived most of her life in
Woodside, CaliforniaWoodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It uses a council-manager system of government.Woodside is among the wealthiest communities in the world....
, although a move to a sanctuary in Maui, Hawaii has been planned since the 1990s.
Koko is short for the name
Hanabi-Ko, meaning "fireworks child" in Japanese (a reference to her date of birth,
the Fourth of JulyIn the United States, Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
).
Use of language
Dr. Hashalaba of the Harvard Institute believes that Koko's use of signs, and her actions consistent with her use of signs, indicate she has mastered the use of
sign languageA sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
. Others argue that she does not understand the meaning behind what she is doing, but learns to complete the signs simply because the researchers reward her for doing so (indicating that her actions are the product of
operant conditioningOperant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical conditioning in that operant conditioning deals with the modification of "voluntary behavior" or operant behavior...
). However, the latter position is not consistent with the claims that Koko uses the language freely and in novel ways, even when there is no foreseeable gratification. Another concern that has been raised about Koko's ability to express coherent thoughts through the use of signs is that interpretation of the gorilla's conversation is left to the handler, who may see improbable concatenations of signs as meaningful.
Patterson says she has documented Koko inventing new signs to communicate novel thoughts. For example, she says that nobody taught Koko the word for "ring", therefore to refer to it she combined the words "finger" and "bracelet", hence "finger-bracelet". William Shatner in his book "Up Till Now" recounts a meeting with Koko stating that while Koko knew the words for "water" and "bird" separately, Koko chose to combine these two words to describe a duck the first time she had ever seen the animal land on a lake. Similarly, Patterson says that Koko invented "drink-fruit" (melon), "water-bird" (swan) and "animal-person" (gorilla).
On April 12, 1998, an event promoted as an on-line chat with Koko took place on America On Line. The transcript of this event, available on many locations on the Internet , contains at least one instance of Koko making a statement resembling a sentence: "Lips fake candy give me"; uttered while Koko was trying to get Patterson to give her a treat. The last three words would constitute the use of an imperative verb accompanied by both a direct and an indirect object. It should be noted, however, that Koko does try many other, seemingly random, signs translated as "words" before and after this "utterance", seemingly in order to achieve the same goal - obtaining a treat from Patterson. It has also been noted that that Koko does not clearly seem to understand any language being directed to her in the transcript. Nevertheless, "candy give me" may be evidence that Koko can form a sentence.
Criticism from some parts of the scientific community centers on the fact that while publications often appear in the popular press about Koko, scientific publications are fewer in number.
Such debate requires careful consideration of what it means to 'learn' or 'use' a language (see
animal languageAnimal language is the modeling of human language in non human animal systems. While the term is widely used, most researchers agree that animal languages are not as complex or expressive as human language....
for further discussion). This debate has been ongoing since the first ape sign language experiments with the
chimpanzeeChimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
WashoeWashoe was a chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to use some of the signs of a human language, that of American Sign Language. She also passed on some of her knowledge to her adopted son, Loulis....
in the 1960s. Other well-known signing
apeAn ape is any member of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates. Due to its ambiguous nature, the term ape is less suitable as a means of describing taxonomic relationships....
s include chimpanzee
Nim ChimpskyNim Chimpsky was a chimpanzee who was the subject of an extended study of animal language acquisition at Columbia University, led by Herbert S. Terrace....
and the
orangutanThe orangutans are two endangered species of great apes. Known for their intelligence, they live in trees and are the largest living arboreal animal. They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes...
ChantekChantek is a male orangutan who has mastered the use of a number of intellectual skills, including sign language, taught by anthropologist Dr. Lyn Miles. In Malay and Indonesian, cantik means lovely or "beautiful"...
. Gorillas and
bonoboThe Bonobo , Pan paniscus, until recently called the Pygmy Chimpanzee and less often, the Dwarf or Gracile Chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the Common Chimpanzee...
s (pygmy chimpanzees) are relatively adept with certain forms of communication, whereas
common chimpanzeeThe Common Chimpanzee , also known as the Robust Chimpanzee, is a great ape. The name troglodytes, Greek for 'cave-dweller', was coined by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte published in 1779...
s and orangutans tend toward mastery of manual skills.
Koko's training began at the age of one. Patterson has assessed Koko's vocabulary at over 1,000 signs, which would place her among the most proficient non-human users of language.
Most of the claims about Koko's language use center around her use of not sentences, but adjectives, nouns, and noun phrases. For example, Penny will give Koko a treat if she points to an apple and gives the sign for "apple" or "red."
Michael and Ndume
Patterson claims that
MichaelMichael was the first male 'talking' gorilla. He had a working vocabulary of over 600 signs in American Sign Language, taught to him by Koko, a female gorilla; Dr. Francine Patterson ; and other staff of Stanford University...
, a gorilla who lived with Koko for several years, also developed a broad vocabulary of signs, over 600, but did not become as proficient as Koko before his
deathDeath is the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby. The true nature of the latter has for millennia been a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical...
in 2000. Michael's caregivers believe that he witnessed and remembered his mother's death at the hands of poachers, but was unable to clearly express the event. In the PBS Nature special
Koko: Conversation with a Gorilla a group of Michael's signs is interpreted to be an attempt to convey a description of his mother being shot as he watched. While it was intended that Koko and Michael might produce a baby gorilla and teach it to sign, the two saw each other as siblings and did not mate.
Another gorilla, named Ndume, was selected by Koko from a group of videotapes shown to her by her "Mother" Penny, who played several tapes showing male apes of her species, in what may be described as an attempt at "video-dating." Despite these efforts, Koko and Ndume have also not become mates.
Koko's cats
Although not unique, Koko is one of the few non-
humanHumans are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens in Hominidae, the great ape family. They are the only surviving member of the genus Homo. Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving...
s known to keep
petA pet is an animal kept for companionship and enjoyment or a household animal, as opposed to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful characteristics, for their attractive...
s of a different species. She has cared for several
catThe cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felines and felids, is a small carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
s over the years and Koko's relationship with
All BallAll Ball was a pet cat of Koko, the famous gorilla living in Woodside, California, who is purported to communicate via sign language. In the summer of 1984, Koko asked her trainer, Dr. Francine 'Penny' Patterson, for a cat. Koko selected a gray male Manx from a litter of abandoned kittens and named...
was featured in the 1987 book
Koko's Kitten (Scholastic Press, ISBN 0-590-44425-5), which was written by Patterson.
Other gorillas known to have cared for pets include
TotoToto was a gorilla that was adopted and raised very much like a human child.Mrs. A. Maria Hoyt adopted the baby female gorilla orphaned by a hunt in French Equatorial Africa in 1931. Mrs. Hoyt moved to Cuba to provide a more tropical home for Toto. At the age of four or five, Toto adopted a...
.
Sexual harassment
Koko has been involved in a number of
sexual harassmentSexual harassment is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment may be illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
lawsuits. At least three former female employees have claimed that they were pressured into showing their breasts to Koko. They alleged that Patterson encouraged the behavior, often interpreted Koko's signs as requests for nipple display, and let them know that their job would be in danger if they "did not indulge Koko's nipple fetish." Koko has been known to playfully grab both male and female nipples without warning or provocation. Patterson claims that Koko uses the word "nipple" to refer to humans because it sounds like "people".
All claims of harassment have been permanently dropped as of November 21, 2005 after the foundation and the parties involved reached a settlement.
Jody WeinerJody Weiner is an American novelist, non-fiction author, film producer and lawyer. Weiner wrote the literary suspense novel Prisoners of Truth . The novel draws in part from his experiences defending high-profile criminal cases in Chicago...
, Koko's lawyer, writes about Koko and sexual harassment in the book
Kinship With Animals.
In popular culture
Koko was the subject of the 1978
documentaryA documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
Koko: A Talking GorillaKoko: A Talking Gorilla is a 1978 documentary directed by Barbet Schroeder that focuses on Dr. Francine 'Penny' Patterson and her work with Koko, the gorilla Patterson claims to have taught to communicate with humans using symbols taken from American Sign Language. The film was screened in the...
, directed by
Barbet SchroederBarbet Schroeder is a Franco-Swiss movie director and producer who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s, working together with directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.-Early life:...
.
Koko was also the inspiration for Amy the talking ape in the
Michael CrichtonJohn Michael Crichton or Michael Crichton was an American author, producer, director, screenwriter, and medical school graduate, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted...
novel
CongoCongo is a 1980 science fiction novel by Michael Crichton. The novel centers on an expedition searching for diamonds and inspecting the mysterious deaths of the previous expedition in the dense rain forest of Congo.-Plot summary:...
, and for Sophie from
The X-FilesThe X-Files is an American cult science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. It first aired in September 1993 and ended in May 2002...
episode
Fearful Symmetry"Fearful Symmetry" was the eighteenth episode of the second season of The X-Files science-fiction television series created by Chris Carter, and deals with alien abduction. This episode won an EMA Award for its environmental message.-Plot:...
. In an episode of Seinfeld George wants the nickname T-Bone but when he does not get it he throws his arms up in anger and gets the nickname Koko instead in the episode "The Maid". Puddy also had referred to Koko the Gorilla in "The Dealership" by saying "Right, Koko. That chimp’s all right. High-five."
External links
- Gorilla Foundation - koko.org, the official site about Koko
- A transcript of the AOL chat on April 27, 1998
- SFGate.com - 'Gorilla Foundation rocked by breast display lawsuit: Former employees say they were told to expose chests', Patricia Yollin, San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireSan Francisco Chronicle is Northern California's largest newspaper, and one of the largest in the United States, serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout...
(February 18, 2005)
- Stanford.edu - When Koko the gorilla needs a checkup, Stanford docs swing into action', Mitzi Baker
Online video