Study
Gestural communication of the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla): repertoire, intentionality and possible origins
Genty, Emilie; Breuer, Thomas; Hobaiter, Catherine; Byrne, Richard W.
Animal Cognition, 2009
Gestures were recorded systematically across several gorilla groups and coded for the criteria that distinguish intentional communication from a reflex or a by-product: whether the signaller checks that a recipient is attending, whether the gesture is repeated or substituted when it fails, and whether it stops once the goal is met.
- Studied in
- Gorilla gorilla gorilla, Gorilla beringei
- Sample size
- thousands of gesture records across captive and wild groups
A repertoire of over one hundred distinct gestures was documented, used flexibly and meeting the standard criteria for intentional signalling — audience checking, persistence and elaboration after failure, and cessation on success. Much of the repertoire was shared across groups and across gorilla populations rather than being group-specific inventions.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Gorilla gestural communication is intentional and largely species-typical, suggesting a repertoire inherited rather than culturally constructed in each group.
How NatureHQ reads it
This is the paper to read before anything about ape language, because it shows what apes actually do communicatively and how far it is from the thing the sign-language stories claimed. The gestures are intentional in a technical and demanding sense — the animal checks you are looking, tries again if you do not respond, stops when it gets what it wanted. That is genuinely more than most animal signalling. It is also not syntax, not symbols, and not a lexicon: the meanings are largely about immediate goals, and the repertoire is shared across populations, which is what you expect of something inherited rather than invented. Richer than a reflex, and a long way short of a language.
- Meaning is inferred from context and from the recipient's response, not read off directly.
- Captive and wild groups differ in opportunity, which may affect measured repertoire size.
- Repertoire counts depend on how finely gestures are split, and coding schemes differ between labs.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Springer journalsPublished in a Springer journal.
doi.org/10.1007/s10071-009-0213-4
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-11.