Recent studies indicate that wild chimpanzees possess a more sophisticated communication system than was previously understood, using various methods to combine their vocal sounds and make new meanings. The aspects of chimpanzee communication highlighted in a study released on Friday in the journal Science Advances have similarities to the essential traits of human language.
The aspects of chimpanzee communication, detailed in research released on Friday in the journal Science Advances, bear similarities to the core components of human language. Researchers examined audio recordings from three different groups of chimpanzees residing in the Ivory Coast and discovered that these chimpanzees can merge their hoots, grunts, and vocalizations much like humans employ idioms or rearrange words to create new expressions.
According to Townsend, forest monkeys, characterized by their fairly straightforward social structures, predominantly rely on vocal sounds to deal with dangers from predators. However, he believes that the rise of larger and more complex social structures — a trait found in great apes and humans.
Simon Townsend, a cognitive research professor at the University of Zurich who has worked on bonobo studies but didn’t participate in this research, indicated that this publication marks the initial evidence of chimpanzees utilizing various methods that are viewed as foundational elements of language.
“It does seem to suggest that our linguistic abilities were already well on the way to evolving … 6-7 million years ago,” Townsend said, referring to when the species likely branched off from one another in the evolutionary tree.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/chimpanzees-use-features-language-talk-rcna205717
