Chimpanzees, like humans, speak in full sentences.

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“Language is the distinguishing feature between humans and animals. “The fact that animals can also speak in sentences turns this idea upside down,” lead author Maël Leroux of UZH told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Thursday.

Researchers placed a stuffed python in the path of wild chimpanzees in Uganda to study the monkeys’ language. Using a fine thread, they moved the snake as soon as a chimpanzee approached. The results were published Thursday in the famous journal “Nature Communications”.

Chimpanzees have been known to make “Huu” sounds when scared or surprised. Another important call of monkeys is the “Waa” roar. Chimpanzees need it to gather congeners. For example, when hunting or fighting.

When the monkeys were startled by the venomous snake, they combined the two calls. “While individual calls are used in a variety of situations, the combination of ‘Huu’ and ‘Waa’ is used in a very specific context,” Leroux said.

The scientists also found that more monkeys rushed to help after hearing a combination of the two calls. Other experiments with audio recordings of calls confirmed this. When the researchers played recordings of individual calls to chimpanzees, the responses were significantly weaker than when the calls were combined.

“Then chimpanzees seem to get more information from a combination of calls than from individual calls,” Leroux said. Said. According to the researcher, this shows that they made a meaning out of the sentence and understood the meaning.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37816-y

(SDA)

Source : Blick