Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Scientists may have discovered a form of language used by animals, similar to that used by our own ancestors.
A study into the sounds white-handed gibbons make by Angela Dassow and Michael Coen at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has led to the discovery.
While it has long been known that animals can communicate with one another, the research has provided “clear evidence” that animals have linguistic structures and words that mirror those used by people.
Researchers have discovered that the gibbons have a range of sounds, or “words”, with different meanings that can warn of predators or be used to discipline children or other member of the gibbon group, the New Scientist has reported.
Language has long been considered exclusive to humans, according to Dr Dassow, but now it would seem that animals have similarly complex ways of communicating.
In her dissertation she wrote: "Language is a human affair. It transfers conceptual knowledge from speaker to listener and has extraordinarily generalisable descriptive powers.
"We reevaluate this distinction in the context of vocalisations of white-handed gibbons, demonstrating previously unrecognised complexity and structure in their vocalisation."
Professor Coen, who writes algorithms to make sense of the sounds, agreed with her findings. “Are they words as we know them? No. Does that mean that only human words are words? No, I don’t think so,” he told the Journal Times at the beginning of the study.
“The bottom line would tentatively seem to be that language is far more universal than linguists believe.”
It is likely that the animal noises sound similar to how humans may have communicated by song, 1.8m years ago; Esther Clarke, an anthropologist at Durham University said.
Gibbons are just one species that is being studied for their communication skills. Dolphins and rats, among others, are also being assessed.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments