Bonobos May Combine Words In Ways Previously Thought Unique To Humans (theguardian.com) 23
A new study shows bonobos can combine vocal calls in ways that mirror human language, producing phrases with meanings beyond the sum of individual sounds. "Human language is not as unique as we thought," said Dr Melissa Berthet, the first author of the research from the University of Zurich. Another author, Dr Simon Townsend, said: "The cognitive building blocks that facilitate this capacity is at least 7m years old. And I think that is a really cool finding."
The Guardian reports: Writing in the journal Science, Berthet and colleagues said that in the human language, words were often combined to produce phrases that either had a meaning that was simply the sum of its parts, or a meaning that was related to, but differed from, those of the constituent words. "'Blond dancer' -- it's a person that is both blond and a dancer, you just have to add the meanings. But a 'bad dancer' is not a person that is bad and a dancer," said Berthet. "So bad is really modifying the meaning of dancer here." It was previously thought animals such as birds and chimpanzees were only able to produce the former type of combination, but scientists have found bonobos can create both.
The team recorded 700 vocalizations from 30 adult bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, checking the context of each against a list of 300 possible situations or descriptions. The results reveal bonobos have seven different types of call, used in 19 different combinations. Of these, 15 require further analysis, but four appear to follow the rules of human sentences. Yelps -- thought to mean "'et's do that" -- followed by grunts -- thought to mean "look at what I am doing," were combined to make "yelp-grunt," which appeared to mean "let's do what I'm doing." The combination, the team said, reflected the sum of its parts and was used by bonobos to encourage others to build their night nests.
The other three combinations had a meaning apparently related to, but different from, their constituent calls. For example, the team found a peep -- which roughly means "I would like to ..." -- followed by a whistle -- appeared to mean "let's stay together" -- could be combined to create "peep-whistle." This combination was used to smooth over tense social situations, such as during mating or displays of prowess. The team speculated its meaning was akin to "let's find peace." The team said the findings in bonobos, together with the previous work in chimps, had implications for the evolution of language in humans, given all three species showed the ability to combine words or vocalizations to create phrases.
The team recorded 700 vocalizations from 30 adult bonobos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, checking the context of each against a list of 300 possible situations or descriptions. The results reveal bonobos have seven different types of call, used in 19 different combinations. Of these, 15 require further analysis, but four appear to follow the rules of human sentences. Yelps -- thought to mean "'et's do that" -- followed by grunts -- thought to mean "look at what I am doing," were combined to make "yelp-grunt," which appeared to mean "let's do what I'm doing." The combination, the team said, reflected the sum of its parts and was used by bonobos to encourage others to build their night nests.
The other three combinations had a meaning apparently related to, but different from, their constituent calls. For example, the team found a peep -- which roughly means "I would like to ..." -- followed by a whistle -- appeared to mean "let's stay together" -- could be combined to create "peep-whistle." This combination was used to smooth over tense social situations, such as during mating or displays of prowess. The team speculated its meaning was akin to "let's find peace." The team said the findings in bonobos, together with the previous work in chimps, had implications for the evolution of language in humans, given all three species showed the ability to combine words or vocalizations to create phrases.
What to study? (Score:2)
Travel to the Congo, pay for all the meals, transport and expenses for the study or spend the money on building a solar panel farm?
I should have been a bonobo (Score:3)
Re: I should have been a bonobo (Score:2)
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but bonobos are a matriarchal species.
Sort of. Bonobos are non territorial. So when kicked out of one social group, odds are that there is another one in the same neighborhood. That brings to mind the old saying, "How can you cut me off if you don't know where I'm getting it?"
Come to think about it, bonobos are very similar to humans in this respect. The women that think they are the "alpha female" don't seem to get the fact that the world is full of alpha female wanna-bes.
Re: (Score:2)
Their priorities are fucking/eating/sleeping.
And somehow this article mentions none of these. I call BS on the scientists because they new like two years ago, embarrassed for the human race at the next level terms another species had discovered first, and it took this long to find the other words because that’s how much better and more useful they were.
Re: I should have been a bonobo (Score:2)
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Literally everything they recorded them saying is bonobo innuendo for fucking.
Look, we don’t have to be embarrassed that other species communicate better by grunting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>Try the fish.
Was that an innuendo?
AI Opportunity (Score:2)
Much effort has been spent in past years trying to decipher the calls of apes, whales, birds...
Is today's magical AI, renown for deciphering human languages from texts, not able to figure out any of the languages of these animals? Deciphering and translating these communications would seem to be a fantastic and worthwhile task for AI.
Re: (Score:2)
The "AI" obviously can't because there is nowhere to scrape training data from. Maybe the AGI, if it comes about...
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AI's do not decipher random languages.
They "learn" them, just like humans do - or just different, depends how you see it.
Find an unknown language and no AI will know what it is ...
It might help you deciphering it, but that is it.
This text is English, if you know a bit about linguistics, then you might know that the most common words are rather short. That might you or an AI give a head start ... But does not work for everything. E.g. in most Asian languages the words are one or two syllables only. The remai
Cool - but (Score:4, Informative)
Doesn't diminish the coolness of this on the Bonobo's part however, just that animals are not the intellectual dimwits many have always believed they were.
Re: (Score:1)
That is true for many parrots.
They have roughly 50 words language\ which differs from "tribe" to tribe.
They like to combine words and naturally have up to 400 phrases.
Similar for crows. They live in families, which have their own slang/babble languages. So most crows have two languages, the "general crow" in their area, which covers warning words, like Cat/Fox/Hawk etc. and their family language.
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Politicians, on the other hand, are absolutely the intellectual dimwits we have always believed they were.
in an experiment with word icons (Score:4, Funny)
I saw a yt of a bonobo center where they gave the bonobos a pass of buttons with icons, to see how they could communicate. Then occasionally they give them things they don't have words for.
On such an occasion, they were presented with brussel sprouts, which the bonobos called "trash lettuce".
So they really are just humans.
Oo oo oo aa aa Aaaahh Oooh AH! (Score:2)
and I mean it too!
So bonobos are doing Ebonics...... (Score:2)