Yerkish

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Yerkish is an artificial language created to help non-human primates communicate with people. It uses a keyboard where each key has a lexigram—a symbol that stands for a word or idea. Lexigrams were used by researchers at Georgia State University to talk with bonobos and chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta.

The language was developed by Ernst von Glasersfeld and used by researchers Duane Rumbaugh and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. The first ape trained to use Yerkish was Lana, starting in 1973 as part of the LANA project. Researchers hoped Lana would understand the lexigrams and also start communicating with others through them.

Lexigrams are designed to be clear and unambiguous. Their color helps code meaning: red for edible items like food and drink, blue for actions, and violet for animate beings like humans. The symbols were built from nine simple elements that can be combined by overlaying them to form more complex ideas. For example, the lexigram for “juice” is red and made from a vertical line, a circle, and a wavy line.

About 150 of the first lexigrams were created. A keyboard with keys representing words such as food, eat, apple, and drink was built for Lana. The keys lit up when pressed, and a nearby food dispenser would release the chosen item, allowing researchers to see what Lana was selecting and whether she understood the connection between the key and the item.