Roberts: In Koko, we saw signs of humanity

Millions are mourning a gorilla.

Koko, a western lowland gorilla, died in her sleep at age 46 this month. Koko started learning a version of American Sign Language adapted for apes when she was a year old, and 45 years later she could comprehend 2,000 words and “speak” 1,000. As the subject of news articles and documentaries, she cemented her place in the zoological zeitgeist. Koko, in short, was a superstar.

Celebrities court controversy whether they intend to or not, and Koko was no exception. Scientists questioned how much of Koko’s communication came from her, and how much came from our projections. Researchers have argued in the past that apes don’t possess the same complex language-processing abilities that humans do. They’ve also said that humans communicate extemporaneously about the things around us, conversing for conversation’s sake alone. Apes, on the other hand, prefer functional language. They use their words when they want something concrete.

That gap points to emotional differences between us and our simian ancestors that researchers who spend years raising apes almost as their children are eager to disprove or overcome. And in Koko’s case, there were certainly obstacles.

Interpreting the signs

Sometimes, in response to a prompt, Koko would make the wrong sign, or say the word “nipple” with apparently randomness, and her caretaker would call her “silly” before trying again. Other times, the caretaker’s questions seemed designed to elicit responses that made it seem as if Koko understood more, or more deeply, than she really did.

Sure, Koko could pair an impressive number of words to objects and phenomena, but when she signed “happy” or “love,” did she really feel those things the way we do? We may all have been complicit, critics contend, in interpreting Koko’s gestures in a way that told us what we yearned to hear.

But, boy, did we want to believe.

When Koko’s kitten, All Ball, was killed by a car, Koko reacted, her researchers said, with unambiguous anguish – and the footage they released suggested they weren’t exaggerating. “Bad, sad, bad,” she signed, shoulders hunched. “Frown, cry, frown.” She did seem to be frowning, and she did seem to be crying.

When Koko met Robin Williams, she smiled and they tickled each other. Years later, when he died by suicide, she spent the afternoon sitting somber in her enclosure. Whether Koko matched Williams’ name to their encounter is far from certain — she may have been reacting to the distress of her caretakers.

Maybe most important, those who met Koko, from reporters to actors to the late Mister Rogers, almost all say they felt something.

Our response to a creature at once so like us and so different was to seek out the similarities, to experience empathy and to trust that Koko experienced it, too. It didn’t matter that she didn’t speak English the way we did, or even that she wasn’t human the way we were. What mattered was that somewhere in Koko’s eyes, we saw ourselves.

Molly Roberts is a Washington Post opinion writer. Twitter: @mollylroberts