Monkey Syntax

Scarcely a week goes by without another group of scientists claiming to have shown that language isn’t a uniquely human skill. It’s as though it’s part of a scientist’s job description: prove that we’re really no different from animals.Here’s the latest effort:

Monkeys are able to string together a simple “sentence”, according to research that offers the first evidence that animals might be capable of a key feature of language.

British scientists have discovered that the putty-nosed monkey in Nigeria…sometimes communicates by combining sounds into a sequence that has a different meaning from any of its component calls, an ability that was thought to be uniquely human.

Although many animals communicate with one another using calls that have a particular meaning — usually a warning signifying the presence of a certain predator — none has been known to combine these alarm calls into sequences similar to those of human language.

The findings suggest that the rudiments of syntax, a basic component of human language, may be more widespread among primates than is generally thought, and could ultimately shed light on the evolution of this most distinctly human of traits.

The putty-nosed monkeys, Cercopithecus nictitans, of the Gashaka Gumti National Park, have two main alarm call sounds. A sound known onomatopoeically as the “pyow” warns other animals against a lurking leopard, and a cough-like sound that scientists call a “hack” is used when an eagle is hovering near by.

Kate Arnold and Klaus Zuberbühler, of the University of St Andrews, have now observed the monkeys using these sounds in a new way. A particular sequence of pyows and hacks appears to mean something entirely different.

The monkeys live in groups consisting of a single adult male accompanied by several adult females and their young. When the male utters this “sentence”, consisting of up to three pyows followed by up to four hacks, it seems to be a command telling others to move, generally to find safer, less exposed terrain.

Isn’t it rather begging the question to assume that this is syntactical? They’ve got one call for leopards, another for eagles, and now it seems there’s a third for a general “let’s move” command, which happens to consist of a mix of the two other sounds. So what? It might be convincing if one pyow followed by three hacks meant, “hey, let’s party”, two hacks a pyow and a fart meant, “fancy scratching my arse?”, and a pyow, three hacks, another pyow and a raising of the right leg meant “I’m bored with all this leaping about from tree to tree, can’t we just, you know, cool it and admire the view?”, but really, this is no big deal.

Face it, chaps – language really is uniquely human.