January
13
/ 2017
A new study proposes that baboon grunts and barks might have more in common with human speech than most people believe. Researchers have noted that these monkeys routinely produce five of the distinct vowel sounds found in human languages. Their findings may help in the struggle to discover just how human speech developed. Acoustical Analysis Surprises the Scientific World According to a study published January 11, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, an acoustical analysis of the grunts, barks, wahoos, copulation calls, and yaks from baboons showed that - just like human beings who use several vowels during speech - these animals seem to make five distinct vowel-like sounds. The researchers, led by Dr. Louis-Jean Boë of Grenoble Alpes
