Awwww, language coverage by the BBC. This time, it's putty-nosed monkeys in Nigeria. And the argument is that they are combining relatively few sounds in different ways to convey distinct meanings. These messages include systematic elements: who's talking, what they saw, and whether they "intend to travel".The report's too sparse for me to say much more — how many sounds are we talking, and how systematically are they combined, etc. But don't monkeys recognize the voices of other monkeys in the group?
Hat tip to Elliott.
1 comment:
Mrs. Verb would just like to point out that she saw the Monkees (the singing ones, not the talking ones) in 1967 or 68 (her memory's a little hazy on the details but hell it was 40 freakin years ago). Her mother took her, an act of great selflessness.
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