A lexigram is a symbol that represents a word but is not necessarily indicative of the object referenced by the word. Lexigrams were notably used by the Georgia State University Language Research Center to communicate with bonobos and chimpanzees. Researchers and primates were able to communicate using lexigram boards made by up to three panels of a total 384 keys.
Ernst von Glasersfeld coined the term "lexigram" in 1971, created the first 120 of them and designed the grammar that regulated their combination. This artificial language was called Yerkish, in honor of Robert M. Yerkes, the founder of the laboratory within which the lexigrams were first used in 1973 by the chimpanzee Lana within the context of the LANA project.
Mysticism
The term lexigram has been used to describe a mystical property of words. A lexigram decodes hidden messages in words or titles by putting together full sentences from letters in that word that convey a deeper meaning of the original word. It is considered a spiritual process.
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