W I L D L I F E
WHY CHIMPANZEES DON ’ T TALK ?
Language is one of humans oddest characteristics but chimps too can develop it - By Dr Walter Tarello ( DVM )
If you take a chimpanzee born in the New York Zoo and place it back in its African original habitat he will have little trouble communicating with its peers . This is because all chimps share a common small repertoire of hoots , screams , grunts and barks . Humans are definitely more flexible .
Our brain can hold a huge range of abstractions so we have evolved an open ended form of communication to express our thoughts .
Given that we are genetically and evolutionary speaking , very close , why don ’ t chimps talk ?
Superior sequence processing abilities may have helped our forefathers to develop speech when chimps could not . Innate non-arbitrary tendency to link sounds and sights is thought to play a crucial role in language evolution .
It could have been advantageous to our ancestors to associate the name ‘ lulla ’ to a rounded shape and the name ‘ zizi ’ to a spiky shape , for instance , because instinctively we find it easier to learn the names of rounded objects whose names use rounded vowels .
Most people are not aware of the associations they make , but for some worlds the connection between sound and sight is stronger .
Now for the first time scientist Vera Ludwig and colleagues in Germany have discovered that chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) also make crosssensory associations , suggesting that chimp brains have the rudimentary wiring to develop a language .
Chimps were seen to link sounds with level of brightness of light , a type of connection that underlies the phenomenon called synaesthesia in humans . As a matter of fact , synaesthetes make unusual connections between different senses .
Some perceive a certain taste when they hear Bach music , while others see numbers as colours . This is a much more common experience than you might think , partially explaining how our ancestors took the first step from ape-like screams to a decently understandable vocabulary .
Some chimps may find that music by Bach tastes bitter . However , it remains to be seen if this experience helps them to develop a common vocabulary and to understand the words that others use .
34