Introduction

Koko, a lowland gorilla, can use over a thousand signs to communicate and can understand up to two thousand words in English. When Koko’s IQ was tested on a scale of one hundred, she scored between seventy and ninety five. These facts beg the question, are animals capable of communication with species other than their own? Koko, unlike most animals, was raised in captivity, and was constantly around humans. Would Koko have been able to develop these same communication skills had she been raised in the wild? Animals have no ability to communicate with humans, unless they are conditioned by continued human contact. This tells us that animal communication is not on the same level as human language.