[LINK] "Babbling bonobos and the origins of human speech"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star shared an interesting report originally published in the Washington Post, written by Rachel Feltman, about the language skills of the bonobo.

According to new research, bonobos — our closest relatives in the animal kingdom — might be able to give us an unprecedented peek at the evolution of human speech.

This particular species of great ape, scientists now say, uses sound to communicate in a way that’s remarkably similar to a human infant. They may be the only other species which does so.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ, focuses on bonobo “peeps.” Those are high-pitched squeaks that bonobos use to communicate with one another. But here’s the cool part: Those peeps may sound simple, but they’re actually closer to human speech than anything else in the animal kingdom.

The researchers say these peeps are a lot like the sounds infants make before they learn to talk (sounds called protophones). Baby babble is distinguishable from your standard animal grunting because it doesn’t vary acoustically based on the emotional context of the babbling.