Yerkish

Yerkish is a constructed language with 256 abstract symbols for nouns and verbs. These icons researchers try linguistic contact with primates take. The Yerkish keyboard is connected to a computer that stores every utterance of the animal. The primatologist Sue Savage - Rumbaugh and Duane Rumbaugh investigated how the monkeys Lana, Washoe and Sarah communicate via the keyboard with people. The sign language Yerkish was from the psychology professor Ernst von Glasersfeld (1917-2010) in 1970, developed in collaboration with Pedro Pisani at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta for understanding experiments with chimpanzee Lana.

The bonobo ( pygmy chimpanzee ) Kanzi learned the use of Yerkish in the first 2 years of his life by observing the training of his foster mother Matata. By the early contact with the language, Kanzi has up to now the best understanding of the sign language.