Kanzi tells his friend, Sue, if he wants to go to the log cabin or the tree house in the forest. Sometimes he asks her to play hide-and-seek, tickle, or chase. Today, he slips on his backpack and they hike to the A-frame. Sue asks Kanzi to find sticks. He carries them to her and breaks them in two. She says, "I have a lighter in my pocket, if you need one. You can get it out."  Kanzi takes it and, when Sue asks, lights their campfire. They toast marshmallows. Kanzi smiles. He's one happy ape—or to be exact—bonobo, a pygmy chimpanzee.

Kanzi arrived at the Georgia State University Language Research Center clinging to a female bonobo named Matata. Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a research scientist at the Center, knew Matata well, but that was the first time she'd met Matata's six-month-old adopted son. "Without warning,"  Sue remembers, "Kanzi emitted an electrifying scream and propelled himself from Matata"s arms to mine.  It was a sign of things to come.

Native to the Congo region of central Africa, bonobos are very intelligent and sociable. They share food and raise their young with the cooperation of the whole community. Sue wanted to work with bonobos because she thought that they would be excellent students.

So as not to misinterpret ape responses, researchers at the Center use a special computerized keyboard. Each symbol, or "lexigram,"  on the keyboard stands for a word. Sue hoped to teach Matata how to use these symbols, in addition to her natural gestures and vocal sounds, to communicate her needs and wants.

While his mother struggled with her lessons at the keyboard, Kanzi would jump on her head, perform acrobatics on her shoulders, and steal her food rewards. Sometimes, as Matata searched for the correct symbol, Kanzi would run up to the keyboard, slap a lexigram, then dash away.

After two years, and 30,000 trials, Matata had made little progress. Sue and the other researchers were very disappointed, but hoped to teach Kanzi the lexigrams some day. They added the symbols for "ball"  and "chase"  to the keyboard to interest him, but believed he was still too young to be taught.

But the researchers were in for a surprise. When Kanzi was two and a half years old, Matata had to leave the Center for a while. The day his mother left, Kanzi searched everywhere for her—in all the rooms, in cabinets, even under woodchips in the play yard. Then, to everyone's amazement, Kanzi used the keyboard 120 times!

Kanzi seemed to be using lexigrams to tell the researchers what he wanted. He pressed "raisin peanut"  to receive both those treats, and when he touched "melon go,"  researchers gave him a piece of melon and took him outside. "Kanzi had been keeping a secret,"  Sue remembers. "He had been learning these words all along. . . . We thought he did not know how to talk with the keyboard, but he did." 

Unlike Matata, whom Sue had trained by using food rewards, Kanzi had learned to use the keyboard just by watching. Rather than giving him dreary lessons, Sue decided to make the symbol keyboard a part of his everyday life. She planned Kanzi's day around activities that would naturally interest a young bonobo.

In the wild, apes spend most of the day traveling through the forest looking for food. In the dense forest surrounding the Center, Kanzi and Sue searched for strawberries, blueberries, and onions. In addition, 16 stations were set up where Kanzi's favorite foods could be found. Lexigrams for the stations, the foods, and other things Kanzi could see in the forest were added to his keyboard. Kanzi chose where to go and what to do. He carried a cardboard copy of the keyboard around with him and used it to indicate his choices.

Today, at 21, Kanzi has a vocabulary of several hundred words. According to Sue, he understands and can participate in simple conversations, and he puts words together to form unique sentences to describe what he wants. Although it's not something bonobos do in the wild, Kanzi likes to watch TV. His favorite movies are Tarzan, Quest for Fire, and Iceman. Guess which one he wanted to see when he touched the keyboard to request "fire TV?"

While Sue is convinced that Kanzi has shown the ability to understand and use language, other scientists aren't so sure. They point out that the sentences Kanzi makes with his symbol board are very short, usually just one symbol combined with a gesture, or occasionally two or three symbols together. And Kanzi's sentences are limited to simple requests for food, a toy, or to go out.

In contrast, human beings use words in an immense variety of ways—to express their thoughts and emotions, share knowledge, and ask questions. Human children quickly learn to make longer and more complex sentences than Kanzi can as an adult bonobo.

But Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh believes that, by raising Kanzi in a loving, supportive environment, and talking to him every day about things that interest him—teaching him language in the same way she would a human child's he has reached a new level of communication with our closest animal relative.

1. Cookie Rock
2. Eye Hat
3. Finger Bracelet
4. White Tiger
5. Elephant Baby