Chimpanzees communicate using the same building blocks human beings use in our own language, a study has revealed.
Human language is more similar to communication between chimpanzees than previously thought, as the primate’s gestural communication follows the same mathematical patterns, or linguistic laws.
A study from the University of Roehampton focused on wild chimpanzees living in Uganda’s Budongo Forest Reserve and looked at gestures used in play by the animals.
The study, led by Raphaela Heesen and Professor Stuart Semple, looked at two linguistic laws – Zimph’s law of abbreviation and Menzerath’s law.
Zimph's law says words which are frequently used in speech are usually shorter, and Menzerath's law predicts that longer words are made up of shorter syllables.
These two laws are known to hold true in different languages around the world, but this is the first time it has been looked at in animals.
More than 2,000 play gestures was looked at from the chimps during observation.
Research found that, just as predicted by the two linguistic laws , more frequently used gestures were shorter in duration, and in longer sequences, the average gesture duration was also shorter.
Lead author of the study, Raphaela Heesen, said: “Primate gestural communication is, of course, very different to human language, but our results show that these two systems are underpinned by the same mathematical principles.
“We hope that our work will pave the way for similar studies, to see quite how widespread these laws might be across the animal kingdom.”
Read More
MORE ABOUT