Robert Seyfarth: Can Monkeys Talk?

[@DonaldKronos]

Probably the only reason why Humans are the only surviving primates we know of with complex spoken languages is because when our ancient human ancestors encountered anyone who tried to talk with them, they either joined each other's families or killed each other over misunderstandings. :/

[@chrisose]

The biggest obstacle to understanding the languages of other animal species is for man to get over his superiority complex that tells us that we are the only creatures that communicate.

[@BlackEpyon]

Well said :)

[@MANdrewVsWild]

I agree! "It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese." - Carl Sagan

[@1stb1]

there has been a recent paper published that proposes cows have names. mothers seem to call calves with a distinct sound, and individual calves respond to the unique sounds. if the proposal is true, then this adds to the list of mammalian species that either seem to have rudimentary communications that go beyond generalized signals, or have some degree of identity.

[@YY4Me133]

I don't understand why it's so hard to say the monkeys used words in their alarm calls. Do they have to resemble human language before we recognize them? My cat used different vocalizations for wanting food, wanting his pan cleaned, seeing a bug, saying hello, etc. I honestly don't know why it's taking humans so long to see that many traits we consider human are simply traits of animals.

[@catleugh]

It doesn't seem so remarkable that other animals have evolved the capability of being able to communicate with each other, using unique sounds (words).

[@DJzSith]

*They should study the Jersey Shore cast!*

[@thetruthrover]

They should also study the idiots who watch Jersey Shore.

[@DJzSith]

thetruthrover Well, I guess we all watch it for different reasons, to me it is *The most underrated animal program*. And here's why: Even better than "Shark Attack" and "Lamas In Trouble". When Snooki complains to her father about her boyfriend, he shouts: "Remember, it's all his fault!". Snooki's parents need to win some kind of Parent-of-the-Year award, because the way they reared their little duckling should make any other parent red with envy. So all you people out there, bring up your child so that it knows that it is ALWAYS right, no matter what it says/does/breaks. Never punish, admonish or correct; just let the little chipmunk run amok, and you can't go wrong. Total freedom as the wrong way to push your child in the proper direction? Wrong. Who wouldn't want to have a daughter with as little inhibition as a wild animal, while taking such pride in dressing up like a wasted middle-aged hooker? Rear your child as Snooki's parents have done, and it need not ever use a public toilet again: we underestimate the uses of street pavement. To be fair, there is the issue of genetics, too; Snooki was adopted. And yet this should by no means serve as a deterrent to future adopters. Traveling to a remote mountain-region in Chile where someone you'd never even met before hands you the child of an unknown set of parents - now that's true idealism for you. They didn't even care when told that she is the offspring of a pair of exiled village idiots. They took the tiny Indian girl with open arms and treated her like an exotic souvenir monkey for the next 25 years, indulging her every whim. JS consists of 4 guys who want to be black, and 4 women who want to be prostitutes. I don't mean "black" just because they are so obsessed with tanning, I'm referring also to the incessant YOs and BROs and "da hood" arm-flapping. JS is a unique sort of televised zoo in which all eight animals are (more-or-less) free to roam around the park. But, as all critters, their interests are essentially limited to sex and food. Tanning also, and laundry: our eight chimps need to smell nice just hours before they sweat it out on the dance-floor, fist-pumping ("air-hitting") to the rhythm of "music" which only lower species of primates can find inoffensive/enjoyable. The fact that LMFAO, the worst corporate product on the planet, was asked to "write" for the opening credits says it all. JS is much better than any "Real World" season because MTV found an even more primitive and decadent bunch of attention-seeking, fame-hungry exhibitionists than ever before. Guidos are ideal for this format because (like all animals) they ignore the cameras and aren't too self-conscious. In fact, they aren't conscious at all. As with the show's predecessor, Animal Planet's "Monkey World", the apes all look alike but have these wonderfully different personalities. A unique characteristic of the young females is that they - instead of emulating older females - impersonate the young males: they're violent, aggressive, go to the gym, burp/fart, and then drown in alcohol at night. Ironically, they never try to imitate the young males in their neatness or willingness to prepare food: the females party like animals and they live that way too. Stumbling over broken glass or an old pizza-slice on the floor is a way of life for the chimpus guidoae female. Unlike other mammals, the young Guidette is actually even more aggressive than its steroid-pumped male counterpart. The Guidette proudly displays her "femininity" (hence willingness to mate) by cursing, yelling, sticking out her "kuka" in public, getting into cat-fights, and "smooshing" with other females. However, the Guido is usually unimpressed with any of that and mates with the Guidette only when he can't capture a blond non-Guidette female. The snatching of the non-Guidette, a prized possession for the horny non-picky gorilla-juice-head, usually takes place in the primate's natural habitat: the nightclub. It's there that all the most ridiculous elements of guidotic existence unite: the crowded, smoky, smelly, noisy disco is what Guidos call "home". In this pointless jungle they are free to engage in their ritual mating dance without having to worry about looking utterly foolish. But the male impersonates the female, also; the Guido gets manicures, pedicures, plucks his eye-brows, utilizes an array of perfumes, visits hair-salons very often, and even roasts himself willingly in tanning rooms on an almost daily basis. In that sense he reveals his latent homosexuality. Perhaps this is why the guidus baboonus has a need to over-compensate i.e. prove his machismo - both to himself and others; this can best be observed, in its most extreme form, in the case of a sociopathic chimp called "The Situation". Mike's inferiority complex and continual failure to become the alpha male of the group leads him to a series of near-fights - when he provokes another male(s), but does so very carefully so as to avoid getting involved in an actual scuffle (which would end poorly for him). Sending these 8 entertaining mammals to Italy was right on the money. Merely to watch these "patriotic" Italo-Americans stumble around cluelessly in their "mamma-mia-land" - worth the price of admission alone. No tattooed apes with steroid muscles and very few girls spreading their legs for the first guy why winks at them; what a disappointment this must have been for them. Even more telling was that none of these "Italia!"-shirt-wearing clowns speak the language (apart from Vinnie, who is slightly smarter - or shall we say "less stupid" than the rest). Nevermind that their parents are mostly fluent Italian-speakers or that it's one of the most popular/easiest languages. On the other hand, Mike & co can barely speak English, so a "second" language would be simply asking too much. One complaint: when Angelina became unhappy with the quality of bananas, she left - to be replaced by Snooki's pal Deena, an orangutan juice-head disguised in a Robert Loggia costume. Why couldn't they have cast the beautiful Ryder instead?

[@Yui714]

Tyrone Ross It is interesting. To understand the human condition it may help to understand our most primitive tendencies. These tendencies may be more common or obvious in our less intelligent members. Tendencies that persist as intelligence increases, but in different forms. I believe that the differences in intelligence within our own species is more significant than we may inherently believe. To the point where you can almost study less intelligent people as if they are a difference species.

[@Artifactorfiction]

Yes - I do all the time :)

[@cooter3690]

Prairie dogs actually have a complex language as well. They even have descriptive adjectives and verbs. It's probably likely that all social animals have a primitive language.

[@laythadrian5705]

I always thought animals could communicate telepathically like in the movies.

[@TheLionInWinter07]

Evolution in modern practice, absolutely amazing!

[@lactobacillusprime]

Chickens use different calls for different things/dangers as well.

[@Jagungal]

You get a very similar thing with Chickens so it is not something that exists with higher animals, I would say it is something that may be more common than we think with social animals. Chickens have about 30 different sounds and they will react differently to each one in the same way as portrayed in this video.

[@ThunderTurtle7]

Maybe you should separate some to put in a different environment and see if new calls are made or if the old ones ever change, like word development or dialects

[@flamechick6]

Wow, that's pretty cool.

[@carllangslow3666]

being an older man ,I have had a lot of dogs ,some living with us for 15 years some a lot less I still think about them all . But all of them had bad dreams on more than 1 occasion they would be yapping and the legs would be kicking . Funny yes I know but most animals are aware, the one we got now coco is by far the brightest but also the strangest ,he fits in with us lot batshit crazy.

[@chrisrus1965]

Why couldn't the vervets just involuntarily make different reflexive fear sounds when they see different predators? Like I maybe make a different involuntary fear sound when I see something vaguely dangerous (uh-oh!), or when I feel like I might be getting ill (Ug!), or when I feel like I'm about to fall (Whoa!). These are not symbols for the idea "I'm about to fall.", etc.

[@Tracy_AC]

chrisrus1965 I was thinking about that too. What I think is important is that the other monkeys recognize the sounds and associate them with a specific idea. You say that "whoa" is not symbolic of "I'm about to fall," but I think you are wrong on this point. Given the proper intonation, "whoa" definitely brings to mind images of either a person or a thing falling or becoming unbalanced. Even though a falling person may not consciously say "whoa" in an attempt to inform others that they are falling, the word still carries meaning.

[@chrisrus1965]

Tracy Coxon While shouting such things as "Ow" or "Bleaggh" "Oh!", may communicate to others what type of reaction I am having, they aren't really what we mean when we say someone is "using words" as opposed to another form of communication. After all, don't deaf mutes also make such sounds? And aren't they understood by others? it's not taking a thought and placing it into a randomly chosen sound symbol; a true "word", when we produce such sounds. Another example would be people understanding how a dog feels by the sounds it makes. This doesn't mean the dog is speaking to you, I mean using true "language" with you.

[@Tracy_AC]

chrisrus1965 Why does talking have to be with words? Talking is just vocalization which conveys meaning. The monkeys are using proto-words.

[@chrisrus1965]

Tracy Coxon I liked your term"proto-words"; these may be the primitive precursors to words, but you have to learn what a word means. You don't have to learn what a scream means and few would call a scream a "word" and mean it literally. There's a sheepdog in Germany that understands words.

[@docsmitty4]

+chrisrus1965 True language is something that developed over many thousands of generations and millions of years. The fact that you can even write letters together to describe a sound you are making is proof of language, you have given letters and distinction to a sound. This is exactly how grunts ands screams turned into words over time. I have had a Australian shepherd/border collie mix for about 2 years now. When we first got him he responded vaguely to verbal ques and body language. He quickly learned certain words we said and associated them with certain activities, to the point of us starting to spell the words rather than say them. Now this dog knows what we are spelling. He has gotten smarter every day we've had him. We can't say G-O anymore without him flipping out and running to the door because he knows that means go. The only people that don't recognize that animals can understand language or speak are dumb fucks like you that think some fairy wizard magic cloud man sits up in space and cares about buttholes. Doesn't make sense do it?

[@PaulBarthmaier0]

I like that the description uses the words precursor to language, but it still seems careless to refer to animal communication as language because it dumbs down how much goes into a language. While the association of sound and meaning seems familiar to what we do for our words, take note that the discussion here surrounds salient things that you can see, i.e. concrete nouns. No mention of verbs, no reference to things you can't see, or time reference, or anything close to what would be called grammar in human languages. Let's reserve using the term language for describing the complex grammatical systems that humans use.

[@ikendusnietjij2]

You mean something like "it's very simple, it's not language, but it's a little bit like words". That would do it. (end of the video)

[@ivarlavins4165]

I know some people that communicate worth than a dog. Our pet dogs are bread to be juvenile like children. A wolf would not stand to be treated like we treat our dogs.

[@Tracy_AC]

Paul Barthmaier meh

[@RedTheBible]

With enough time and sound documentation, we will eventually build a universal translator for all semi intelligent species. This might allow us to somewhat communicate with these particularly intelligent species for a variety of purposes, like informing them we mean no harm out in the wild. However with the higher apes, monkeys, dolphins and whales, we might actually have conversations of one form or another one day, even relaying entire concepts and ideas between species. (I admit that sounds more like a movie plot, but it's really not so far fetched nor impossible.)

[@BlackEpyon]

Movie plot? StarTrek IV where Spock mind-melds with the whales in the tank during the tour? One of my favorite StarTrek movies,btw

[@ratloversallful]

there is already some understanding between dolphins and people,i cant remember right now where,but on some island wild dolphins help fishermen catch fish in the net,then dolphins wait for their share of the fish,WILD DOLPHINS,you can find it on the web....

[@aaronbarrett5061]

shadilay my brothers and sisters.

[@in2dionysus]

Duh! He is talking warnings, the most primitive notion towards direction. The fiendish laws of monkey society move toward escalation and motivation; not to praying to a fake moron that only humans think is real to help them!