Can 猿 technically mean "ape"?


It has long been a pet peeve of mine when people talk about apes calling them
"monkeys".

Recently I've seen bonobos being called 猿 in an anime, so from that it's
pretty clear that 猿 also refers to apes informally in Japanese. So I've been
wondering:

Does 猿 also mean ape in technical/scientific Japanese speech?

From what I was able to gather from Wikipedia and dictionaries, apes
(Hominoidea) are ヒト上科 and great apes (Hominidae, which is what a bonobo is)
are called ヒト科.

But that does not clarify whether 猿 can be used technically to refer to them,
or even if 猿 is accepted nomenclature in scientific/technical speech at all.




Some notes from wikipedia on サル with my translations:

> 英語のmonkey（モンキー）や、いくつかの言語での相当する語は、学術的な定義上はオナガザル科（旧世界猿、old world
> monkey）と広鼻猿（新世界猿、new world monkey）の総称である。

The English term 'monkey', and corresponding terms in some other languages, is
a general term referring to the old world monkeys and new world monkeys.

> つまり、サルのうち原猿（曲鼻猿とメガネザル）と類人猿を含まない（メガネザルは分類学上の地位が不安定だが、それとは関係なくmonkeyには含めない）。

That is, lemurs, tarsiers, and apes which are covered by 'サル' are not
considered 'monkeys'. (The exact classification of the tarsiers is not settled
but regardless of that they are not included under the term 'monkey').

> そのため日本語でも、特に翻訳文献で、サルにこれら(特にヒトに最も近いチンパンジー)を含めないことがある。

Thus, even in Japanese, particularly in translated works, these animals
(particularly humans' nearest relation, the chimpanzee) may not be included
under the term サル.

I would add that the use of katakana, rather than kanji, for サル and other
animal names is usual in technical writing.




I think yes is the simple answer but to expand on this:

Apes are technically referred to by zoologists as anthropoids which in
Japanese is: 類人猿. Orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas (オランウータン, チンパンジー, ゴリラ)
all fall under this category. But, when translating ape, I think 猿 is often
used, as in the following quite well known books:

> 猿の惑星：Planet of the apes by Pierre Boulle
>
> 裸のサル, 人間: The naked ape by Desmond Morris

The first is a novel, originally in French, the second a popular book on
science for the layman, both well worth reading.

