Chimps use passionate gestures to communicate

Chimps use a mixture of gestures, vocalisations and sign language, like passionate people, to get their points across to each other and humans, a new study has found.
Using a combination of hand movements and sounds, chimps often succeed in conveying what's on their minds, which - in their case - is mostly food, playtime and annoyance over being ignored.
These gestures frequently happen in sequences, Discovery News reported.
Study co-author Mary Lee Abshire Jensvold from the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, explained how one of the studied chimps, a male named Dar, playfully forced another male, Loulis, to pay attention: "Dar open palm slapped, a tactile gesture, on Loulis. Loulis didn't respond."

"Dar then used a different gesture, the foot stomp, an auditory gesture, which makes noise. Loulis responded to that gesture. This shows a persistence in communication," said Jensvold.
Jensvold and her colleagues studied these two chimps along with three females - Washoe, Moja and Tatu.

They noted that four of "the chimpanzees were raised in an environment like that of a deaf human child and acquired signs of ASL (American Sign Language) in this environment."
When he was brought into the group, the fifth chimp, Loulis, acquired many of the language signs by copying what the other primates were doing.

Researchers noticed that sign language was worked into the mix of chimp vocalisations and gestures when the chimps communicated with each other.
They said chimps also used their own unique mix of gestures not learned or somehow derived from humans.