You went to school to learn how to do math. You took swim lessons to learn the backstroke. Did you ever wonder how you learned to talk? Human babies learn how to talk by listening to the people around them talk. Our brains are like sponges, taking everything in…until one day, we start to talk. Here’s an example: one day when one of our daughters, Sophie, was about two years old, she saw her mama wearing a silver chain with a green bead around her neck. She picked it up and said, “necklace!” You may not think that was extraordinary or even special, but while her mama rarely wore necklaces and never taught her the word directly, Sophie had heard us talking about them (could have been months before), and she soaked up the information and spit it back out to us when she saw the necklace!

So what on earth does this have to do with bonobos? Well, a famous bonobo named Kanzi learned how to ‘talk’ just like you. Okay, so he doesn’t really know how to talk, but he does know how to communicate. Here’s how it happened. His trainer, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, an American Primatologist, began working with a female, adult bonobo named Matata to see if she could communicate with a lexigram. A lexigram is a plastic keyboard containing buttons with printed symbols substituted for words – the bonobo would point to the button when they wanted to ‘say’, or communicate, that word.

Well, it turned out that Matata, who was 10 years old, was not that interested – she learned about 12 words. Meanwhile, her adopted son, Kanzi, was always present when Sue was teaching Matata. He appeared uninterested and spent his time running around and playing with toys. But then… One day, Matata was taken away to do something else, and Kanzi, all of 2 ½ years old picked up the lexigram and began to communicate with Sue. That first day he communicated 120 distinct phrases (a few words strung together) from his 12 world keyboard. Soon, Kanzi knew so many words, that he outgrew his 256 word lexigram keyboard!!! Just like you and Sophie, Kanzi learned like a sponge…while he was playing, his brain was absorbing words and phrases…until suddenly, he ‘talked’ through the lexigram to his caretakers. Bonobos are so smart and so much like us!!!

Do you know what your first word was? Find out and let us know! Do you have a little brother or sister who is just learning to talk? Be a linguist (a scientist who studies language) and observe how they are learning to talk. Do they repeat things, make up their own words, sing, use sign language??? Report back to us…we can’t wait to hear what you’ve learned!

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