Can monkeys be taught to write?

Koko uses signs that stand for whole words and concepts, not individual letters. They were based on American Sign Language, which (like most such languages) only uses finger-spelling in a few situations; think about how often you actually say the spelling of an English word out loud. read more

Finger-spelling is one of the first parts of ASL that humans are taught, though, so it's quite common to think it plays a more important role than it actually does. Koko does recognize some spoken English words as well, but doesn't put words together grammatically. read more