In the 1960s and 70s, a group of chimpanzees astonished the world by learning sign language. Only two remain and one question still lingers—was it worth it?

Back in the 1970s, a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky took part in a Columbia University research study called "Project Nim." Project Nim was led by Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia who was ...

Humans are often thought to be the only animals capable of language. But it’s difficult to prove a negative like this because we’ll never definitively know the subjective interior monologues of other ...

She spent her early years playing in the backyard of a small house in Reno, Nev., learning American Sign Language from the scientists who adopted her. By age 5, she had mastered enough signs to ...

Human communication is a complex weave of words and gestures — a mix of vocal and visual signals. "People use vocal and visual communication in a very rich and combined way," says Joseph Mine, a ...

Humans are known to invent private hand gestures. Chimps in the wild do, too, a new study suggests. By Brandon Keim Parents and their children, or people who know each other well, often share some ...

This next story could not be introduced by a chimpanzee, unfortunately, but chimps do possess some of the building blocks of spoken language. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on two new studies that hint at ...