One of the most lasting mysteries about our own mintage ' evolution is the development of complex speech . How we managed to move from making round-eyed grunts to advanced conviction in which we can now transmit any information through words , is hard to deduce . One study , however , claims to showhow specific orangutan vocalisation may cast off spark on the origin of our own language .
By analyze thousand of so - call orangutan “ kiss squeaks ” , researchers from Durham University have found that the apes combine these noises , which are formed in a interchangeable way to how we make the sound of consonant , to communicate different significance . They think that this could show how from rudimentary noises , ancient humans could have developed a far more ripe and complex speech system .
“ We incline to think that possibly parole evolved from some rudimentary precursor to channel more complex message , ” explained Dr Andriano Reis e Lameira , who co - authored the paper published inNature Human Behaviour , toBBC News . “ We were basically using the orangutan outspoken behavior as a time simple machine – back to a time when our root were using what would become [ those precursors ] of consonants and vowels . ”
The apes habituate a wide compass of vocalizations , from booming roar that can be heard miles away to “ grumphing ” noises when nigh to each other . But it was another auditory sensation that occupy the researcher , known as a " kiss close call " due to how the Pongo pygmaeus make it . In a interchangeable manner to how we make the sound of consonant , the kiss squeaker is not bring on due to the voice , but or else through the action of the rim , natural language , and jaw .
Listening to thousands of hr of communication between the 48 apes living in four population in the wild , they detect that the Pongo pygmaeus were combining the kiss squeaks in different ways , in what the researchers say is a interchangeable means to how we have multiple words to bring a single meaning . They report that the orangutans were basically communicate the same thing in dissimilar style by altering the radiation pattern of kiss close shave .
This means that opposed to our root making an active choice to make complex Son , the redundancy built into the manner orangutans intercommunicate with kiss squeak could provide a way that the complexity emerged organically .
[ H / T : BBC News ]
