Final answer:
Research shows that great apes can use symbolic communication with taught gestures or tokens, and studies like those with bonobos using lexigrams display cognitive linguistic skills. However, true human-like language with open-ended expression and complex rules is unique to humans.
Step-by-step explanation:
Do Other Primates or Animals Use Symbolic Language?
Although human language, with its open-ended combination of signs and its complex rules, is unique in its capacity for infinite expression, research has shown that great apes and other animals do exhibit some capacity for symbolic communication. For instance, human-reared chimps, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans have been taught to use gestures or tokens in a rule-based way, demonstrating the potential for a protolanguage. Studies have revealed the biological bases, such as the mirror neuron system in primates, which enable the recognition and imitation of actions that are crucial for language development. Furthermore, complex forms of animal communication, like the waggle dance of bees, operate under systematic rules, but these are generally limited to specific contexts. Nonhuman primates communicate primarily through gestural, facial, and vocal signals, complemented by touch in social interactions such as grooming and greeting ceremonies.
Key research by primatologists such as Sue Savage-Rumbaugh has shown that bonobos can use a computer-based language program with lexigrams to communicate at a level comparable to that of a two-year-old human child. These studies highlight not only the communicative abilities of these animals but also the continuities that exist between human and animal communication systems.