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

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
August 25, 2021

Hello SignWriting List members, and Sutthikhun (Ae)!

What a remarkable posting! And such a great surprise to see Koco's signs written in SignWriting. Thank you for doing this.

Years ago I was handed information about Koco the gorilla and her signing skills, and asked if I wanted to write it in SignWriting and of course I said yes but then, I never found the time to start the project. At that time I did not know of any videos - only photos. That was in the 1980s I believe.

So thank you, Ae, for doing this. it is great to find the document and the embedded video in SignPuddle Online!

Koko As The Voice of Nature
https://www.signbank.org/signpuddle2.0/searchword.php?ui=1&sgn=5&sid=280&sTrm=&type=any&sTxt=Koko&sSrc=&

Have you ever posted information in Wikipedia? For example, at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on Koko:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)

The link to the SignPuddle page could be listed along with other references, and that would be helpful to both Koko and SignWriting -

Thanks again for posting this -

Val ;-)

-------------


> On Aug 24, 2021, at 11:01 PM, Sutthikhun Phaengphongsai <suttikunep at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  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.
> 
> 
> 
> 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
> "(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?
>  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.
>  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=&
> 
> References:
> 1. https://www.koko.org/
> 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)
> 3. https://www.signwriting.org/
> 
>   "Apes together, strong!"
> 
> Sutthikhun (Ae)
> 
> ________________________________________________


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