I do believe it’s interesting but we have to cross-foster the chimps whom we teach sign language to, meaning they won’t be living in the wild. They’re treated like children. So what are the benefits to teaching a chimp how to sign?
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Cause then they won’t screw up our orders at Burger King so much.
I would imagine it is so the owner knows what the chimp wants. I have a dog that jumps around when it wants something and your not sure what it wants.
Because it’s cool that they can understand. And it’s cool to know exactly what something other than a human is thinking.
Other than that there is no purpose.
Because they can’t talk, but they can think and communicate.
It would be fascinating to know if there are other primates with the capability to use a verbal language. We know no other species have the vocal equipment to use spoken language. But what about a non-spoken language?
I wasn’t aware of any such effort with chimps. The only case I knew of was Koko the gorilla, who apparently really does take the individual signs she’s learned and put them together in new and more complex ways. But some people don’t believe that she’s really doing that sort of higher level thinking.
http://www.koko.org/world/signlanguage.html
They are smart enough to communicate, but cant use a verbal language. Sign Language provides a way for people to communicate and know what a chimp wants.