Biological species of the World

The Linguistic Complexities of Chimpanzees

Animal communication is studied not only to learn more about the animals themselves, but also to understand how human language originated. This refers, of course, to vocal communication: how it occurs, what neural mechanisms are involved in it, and what exactly is contained in the vocal messages animals exchange. In this regard, chimpanzees receive special attention — after all, from an evolutionary perspective, they are our closest relatives. The vocal signal repertoire of chimpanzees is quite broad, and within it, one can distinguish between simple and complex signals. But what does "complex signals" mean? Various animals, not just chimpanzees, combine sounds together, but it is usually thought that the resulting complexity is purely superficial, that the sounds are combined randomly. It has been shown for birds and primates that new meaning emerges in their sound combinations. However, this new meaning is also formed by simple addition, similar to how in the phrase "black cat" the new meaning arises from the simple combination of "black" and "cat." ... Read more