After Alex the talking parrot, scientists engaged in teaching animals to communicate, have lost one more star pupil.

Washoe, a female chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn human sign language passed away on October 30th 2007 at the ripe old age of 42.

Washoe was born in Africa in September 1965. She was caught in the wild and at 10 months was taken in by biologists Allen and Beatrice Gardner. In 1967, as part of a research experiment to teach human language to animals, they launched a new project with Washoe as the candidate.

Chimpanzees were chosen for this study because they are intelligent and social animals. However a major disadvantage with a chimp is that it does not possess vocal apparatus that would allow the production of human speech. But, since Chimps used their hands a lot in their natural habitat, scientists decided to use this innate trait in their training. So the goal of the project was to teach Washoe to use the American Sign Language. The ASL is the widely used sign language of the deaf community in North America.

The Gardeners made Washoe's environment as similar as possible to a hearing impaired human infant. Helpers communicated with Washoe by using ASL, rather than with the spoken voice.

The first word that Washoe learnt to ‘say’ with a sign was ‘toothbrush’. And in the first six years she learned approximately 150 signs. At the time of her death it was reported that Washoe could reliably use 250 signs. In addition to individual signs, Washoe displayed the ability to combine signs in novel and meaningful ways. For example, she referred to her toilet as ‘Dirty Good’ and the refrigerator as ‘Open Food Drink’!

Roger Fouts the caretaker of Washoe was interested in finding out if chimpanzees were capable of ‘transmitting’ sign language to their offspring. Because Washoe did not have an offspring, Fouts arranged for Washoe to adopt a male infant named Loulis. After a short adjustment period, the experimenters observed Washoe signing "Come Baby" to Loulis who jumped in her arms. On his eighth day with Washoe, Loulis made his first sign. In time he learnt to use many more signs and thus became the first animal to acquire a human language from a non-human. To convince the sceptics, Fouts released a videotape of the chimpanzee-to-chimpanzee communication through signs!

The successes with Washoe led to more experiments with the other apes. The most famous names among these are Koko, a female Gorilla and Chantek a male Orang-utan.

Koko started her lessons in 1972 at the age of 1. She was a quick learner and is said to have a working vocabulary of over 1000 signs! Koko also understands approximately 2000 words of spoken English.

Chantek, born in 1977 has mastered the use of a number of intellectual skills, including sign language.He has a vocabulary of several hundred signs, and understands both spoken Englsih and American Sign Language. Chantek also makes and uses tools, creates paintings, necklaces,crafts and music!