Posted on 04/09/2013 10:10:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Scientists claim to have identified the missing link between human speech and monkey chatter.
Researchers analysed the distinctive "lip-smacking" sounds made by wild gelada baboons of the Ethopian highlands and found striking similarities to human speech.
Their noises are so human-like that Thore Bergman, an assistant professor with the University of Michigan, thought he heard people talking while he was hanging out with the creatures.
"I would find myself frequently looking over my shoulder to see who was talking to me, but it was just the geladas," he said. "It was unnerving to have primate vocalizations sound so much like human voices."
Male geladas smack their lips to produce a distincive "wobble" in their calls to females. These sounds follow a similar tempo to human speech.
Bergman suggested the research identified a "plausible" explanation of how human speech evolved.
He said: “The ability to produce complex sounds might have come first. Then, when we could do that, we could attach meanings and communicate in more sophisticated ways. Or it could be that, as we needed to communicate more, we developed an ability to produce a greater variety of sounds.”
Other monkeys smack their lips while eating, but geladas are the only species which do so when communicating. It is believed monkeys living in large groups have stronger vocal skills.
“It’s a very complex social system. They have some of the largest groups of any primate,” Bergman said. “These very large group structures may be linked to vocal complexity. There’s some evidence across primate that bigger groups make more sounds.”
The research can be found in the journal Current Biology. According to the study's abstract, the gelada baboons' "independent evolution of a speech-like vocalization involving complex facial movements provides initial support for the hypothesis that lip-smacking was a precursor to the emergence of human speech".
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Lip-Smacking Primates May Offer Insight Regarding The Origin Of Human Speech
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This helps me to better understand liberal speech patterns. Thanks for posting this!
HA!
Parrot tilts head.
Three monkeys sat in a coconut tree Discussing things as they are said to be.
Said one to the others, "Now listen, you two, There's a rumor around that can't be true "That man descended from our noble race "The very idea is a great disgrace.
"No monkey has ever deserted his wife "Starved her babies and ruined her life "And you've never known a mother monk "To leave her babies with others to bunk
"Or pass from one on to another "Till they scarcely know who is their mother.
"And another thing you'll never see, A monk build a fence round a coconut tree, And let the coconuts go to waste, Forbidding all other monks to taste; Why, if I put a fence around a tree, Starvation will force you to steal from me!
"Here's another thing a monkey won't do "Go out at night and get on a stew. "Or use a gun or club or knife "To take some other monkey's life.
"Yes, man descended, the ornery cuss "But, brother, he didn't descend from us."
~ Gilliam S. Weaver ~
FINALLY, ROCK HARD PROOF OF EVOLUTION: MONKEYS SMACK THEIR LIPS.
I thought we were related to parrots, because they do a great job of talking like humans. And sometimes make more sense.
People who are desperate to prove something will believe anything.
My children are also adept at producing plausible explanations for the current reality presented to them. Somehow, I expect more of scientific work.
Monkeys throw their feces, fence off their territory with force, and murder their rivals (with clubs), and eat their faces.
Not knocking monkeys for being monkeys, but it rather puts the lie to that little poem, doesn’t it.
I have a Sun Conure. Two years old and says nary a word. However, Wife and I have an extended new varity of clicks, clucks, squawks, whistles and head bobs.
Mr. M and I lived one summer with two Amazon parrots. They hated each other. Neither had much in the way of specific words that they knew but each chattered a lot, Arturo spoke Spanish and Far Out (yes, that was her name) spoke English. Maybe that’s why they didn’t get along.
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