Language can be explored from the perspective of sociocultural anthropology as well as from the perspective of biological anthropology. In exploring non-human primate communication, actual observation, rather than reading, may be more helpful to your understanding of this topic. You may be familiar with signing apes like Koko the gorilla.
After you review the course materials in this lesson, you will understand that primates have sophisticated cognitive and vocal abilities. Apes have a capacity for learning and understanding some basics of language that are quite impressive, but the way that humans use language is much more advanced.
Course Objective(s):
CO1: Recognize and demonstrate respect for human differences.
CO2: Summarize a range of anthropological terms.
CO5: Explain the holistic nature of anthropology.
CO7: Demonstrate an understanding of culture and how it helps frame our societies (family, lifestyle, lineage, language and communication) and its evolution, how it mirrors biological evolution.
CO8: Demonstrate an understanding of human past, both distant and more recent, and how our past can be used to comment on our future.