http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantek
Chantek (born December 17, 1977, at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia) is a male orangutan who has mastered the use of a number of intellectual skills, including sign language, taught by anthropologist Dr. Lyn Miles.
Chantek has a vocabulary of several hundred signs, and understands both spoken English and American Sign Language. Chantek makes and uses tools, creates paintings, necklaces, crafts and music, and is one of only a handful of signing primates scattered across the United States.
From the age of nine months, Dr. Miles raised Chantek as a signing infant, rearing him as much as possible as a human child on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Miles toilet-trained Chantek, and gave him chores and an allowance, using steel washers as money. His favorite way to spend it was on fast food.
Born at Yerkes, Chantek was transferred to the university when he was nine months old to learn from Dr. Miles. He returned to Yerkes for a short time, and then spent about nine years living in a trailer at Dr. Miles' home near the university. His current habitat at Zoo Atlanta is an enclosure that affords him private space and is expansive with plenty of trees for swinging from branch to branch (brachiation).
Like children, Chantek prefers to use names rather than pronouns - as the reference is fixed - even when talking to a person. He even invents signs of his own (e.g., 'eye-drink' for contact lens solution, and 'Dave missing finger' for a special friend). He developed referential ability as early as most human children, and points to and shows objects just like humans do. Chantek uses adjectives to specify attributes, such as "red bird", and "white cheese food eat", yet he overgeneralizes in interesting ways, too. For example, he uses the sign 'Lyn' for all caregivers, but never for strangers.
Chantek also demonstrates self-awareness, by grooming himself in a mirror and by using signs in mental planning and deception. Rather than simply exhibiting conditioned responses, as critics of primate intellect contend, Chantek has learned roles - and role reversals - in games like 'Simon Says'. Like many other orangutans who have demonstrated problem solving skills, Chantek exhibits certain intuitive and thinking character traits comparable to the rationality used in human engineering. His intellectual and linguistic abilities make some scientists, including Dr. Miles, regard him as possessing personhood.
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