[Sw-l] Koko's Gorilla Sign Language: a variation of ASL

[Sutthikhun Phaengphongsai]

[image: 🦍] Hello! Anyone here knows a female gorilla named 'Koko'?
Does any ASL signer or anyone understand these signs?

   - Koko was a female western lowland gorilla and was born at the San
   Francisco Zoo and spent most of her life with Francine Patterson, her ASL
   instructor and caregiver, in Woodside, California, at The Gorilla
   Foundation's preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
   - I'm deeply sorry for her that she passed away 3 years ago. She was a
   unique gorilla who could communicate using her own sign language,
   GorillaSL, which is a variation of ASL. Anyway, a gorilla's hand morphology
   differs slightly from that of a human, with thicker fingers and shorter
   thumbs. So, Koko's hand gestures could not match the human hand gestures
   accurately as a result of this.
   - This following sign literature is transcribed from her speech
   messaging to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, delivering a Public Service
   Announcement (PSA) on the subject of Climate Change.
   - Although I cannot verify that she actually expressed these long
   sentences or that the words were human-edited in the video, it is
   undeniable that her GorillaSL communication is not worthless and is still
   significant in spreading environmental awareness.


[image: Koko speech.png]

*Description*
"Koko as the Voice of Nature" - A Gorilla Sign Language (GSL) speech, which
the language was derived from American Sign Language (ASL), written in
Sutton SignWriting

Video transcribed: https://youtu.be/Hb9d0IYtyek
<https://youtu.be/Hb9d0IYtyek?fbclid=IwAR2qFbH8t4LVqIVpU5TMSAL5TLu8_TQZJAiKgtuWL2I_tIHaCa3u51LbW6w>
"(I am) gorilla. (I am) flowers, animals. (I am) nature. Man, (Koko) loves.
The earth (Koko) loves. (But) man stupid. Stupid! (Koko) sorry. (Koko) cry.
Time hurry! Fix the earth! Help the earth! Hurry! Protect (the earth).
Nature see. Thank you."

Who is Koko?
[image: ☝] Hanabiko Koko (1971–2018) was a female western lowland gorilla.
Koko was born at the San Francisco Zoo and lived most of her life in
Woodside, California, at The Gorilla Foundation's preserve in the Santa
Cruz Mountains.
[image: ✌] Her instructor and caregiver, Francine Patterson, reported that
Koko had an active vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs of what Patterson
calls "Gorilla Sign Language" (GSL). This puts Koko's vocabulary at the
same level as a three-year-old human. In contrast to other experiments
attempting to teach sign language to non-human primates, Patterson
simultaneously exposed Koko to spoken English from an early age. It was
reported that Koko understood approximately 2,000 words of spoken English,
in addition to the signs.

Sign with Koko!: https://www.koko.org/kids4koko/signing

Link to SignPuddle Online:
https://www.signbank.org/signpuddle2.0/searchword.php?ui=1&sgn=5&sid=280&sTrm=Koko+as+the+Voice+of+Nature&type=any&sTxt=&sSrc=
<https://www.signbank.org/signpuddle2.0/searchword.php?ui=1&sgn=5&sid=280&sTrm=Koko%20as%20the%20Voice%20of%20Nature&type=any&sTxt&sSrc&fbclid=IwAR2z9L2ZS4gc0Smd7gCW7R_bml5RgsyXmMYm6bMbgpibM3qDLQxtgPnyHoU>
&

References:
1. https://www.koko.org/
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.koko.org%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1R5zvbKavZ1r9P3X-x3ZLLfAW6C_I2jP0B6oCSx8anBpyMJfKuUwqbfyY&h=AT2e0asVo_eDCREO0JxtzXUPVYQEVzdLegJGC6VuMTc1X_Amt2BRKOaSWIsIoU4xnmAA7wYgA9kRFdR9OGVn5pmcn2YnCTviTCYy29O1MIVnK53deZyOIoE3XUX-naRVT_c4XAXIIHr00dosZ42c&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT0b8MQUK-yznG609mwDEbM3JtuuRZnL2UEj8FFu9YkR7xjS6VFxiEL-3NCcHXmVU33yae6JM7CfHaxto6s8IBRuwGD8tcJE-4lZ1O0SJdVW8qFZdvSnUn_KZ0X6pT4MK_xuSFbU1pnkHrs_793dGz_mNw>
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)?fbclid=IwAR3-xzno75HtoyyDPqUxwbwpzab8O2Pz5KgsEdSKscS2WHSW1JDaUWEM4Rw>
3. https://www.signwriting.org/
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.signwriting.org%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0eRccntfzBgfE3PXHbmS1L0xB29AybsF4kMMKG9N9bTlAoH_ekudIKFv0&h=AT1rpfG9CBYWik6aKet5fPlJCMdS_UsTdVwu5dML6O4gkGuy1E-zUFZ70_4I026NEE09QXGibmQOV5CWyadvOTEClE2w263Ea4GCUFedqNJnaV2C5mg3O9qGEjYkK6r3jwuKM6mkgr4E2gMVaERn&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT0b8MQUK-yznG609mwDEbM3JtuuRZnL2UEj8FFu9YkR7xjS6VFxiEL-3NCcHXmVU33yae6JM7CfHaxto6s8IBRuwGD8tcJE-4lZ1O0SJdVW8qFZdvSnUn_KZ0X6pT4MK_xuSFbU1pnkHrs_793dGz_mNw>

  "Apes together, strong!"

[image: sign (14).png]
Sutthikhun (Ae)

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