All animals have different ways to communicate. They use gestures and sounds to communicate things such as to warn when an enemy is approaching. In comparison, we use more than gestures and sounds to communicate. We use language, which is one of the things that make us unique.

There have been projects to see if certain apes can learn language like we can. Sue Savage Rumbaugh and her team presented the most enlightening project ever. They taught a bonobo named Kanzi to use a computer keyboard every time he wanted to communicate with them. This machine had symbols with corresponding oral words.

The problem that Dr. Anderson addresses is that Kanzi cannot understand the purpose of prepositions and conjunctions in a sentence. For example, from the sentence “go get the carrot that’s in the microwave,” Kanzi would only be able to recognize the words, “Go,” “get,” “carrot,” and “microwave.” He would only need to hear these words in order to understand that he was commanded to get a carrot, and that the microwave was the location. In addition, Kanzi cannot associate different meanings to a sentence such as “the chickens are ready to eat.” One meaning could be that the chickens are already cooked, and the other could be that they are going to eat.

The conclusion from these kinds of projects is that grammar is still something that only humans can learn. Also, the use of language with all of its abstractions can only be learned and used by us.