The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and three orangutans. But if you think Iowa might be a strange place for them to live, don't say it out loud … these apes understand English.
Really. No kidding.
Watch more on this story tonight on 'Nightline' tonight at 11:35 p.m. EDT.
You can talk to the apes, and they know what you are saying.
The residents of the Great Ape Trust are part of groundbreaking language research where the apes are being taught to communicate with humans by pressing 350 lexigrams -- symbols that appear on a screen and represent thoughts and objects.
The superstar is 26-year-old Kanzi, whom Bill Fields has been working with for years. To communicate, Fields speaks to Kanzi, who then points to the lexigrams to respond and demonstrate a level of understanding.
"Qualitatively, there is no difference between Kanzi's language and my language," Fields said. "It's a matter of degree."
The key to ensuring they grasp the language, the researchers said, is to start teaching them when they are young, just like you would with human babies.
"Language is culturally acquired. Its not learned," said Fields. "It's acquired in the immediate postnatal antogyny of the organisms life. The only organism capable of learning language are babies."
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