... of these signs were proper nouns but he also learned many verbs and adjectives as well as a small number of pronouns and propositions. Savage Rumbaugh criticised Terrace's methods by saying they were too strict and that Nim's progress may have been inhibited by the lack of a personal relationship as she felt she had with Kanzi. The method and initiation of Kanzi's training by Savage Rumbaugh was quite different. Kanzi's acting mother 'Matata' was a research subject in language acquisition studies. When Kanzi was six months old Matata was taken away to breed with another Bonobo ape. When left alone he seemed miraculously to correctly employ all 10 lexigrams that were on his mother's learning keyboard. Although the experimenters had not intended to teach Kanzi he had been present at all his mother's lessons (though he had not seemed to be paying any attention at the time). Not only did he ...

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