{"id":756320,"date":"2019-02-27T09:52:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T14:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=756320"},"modified":"2019-02-27T09:52:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T14:52:13","slug":"chimpanzee-sign-language-study-reveals-uncanny-parallels-to-human-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/?p=756320","title":{"rendered":"Chimpanzee Sign Language Study Reveals Uncanny Parallels to Human Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<blockquote  class=\"bs-quote bs-quote-1 bsq-t1 bsq-s1 bsq-left\">\n\t\t<div class=\"quote-content\">\n\t\t\t<p>Some of the fundamental ways in which language is organized is shared with chimpanzee gesture. They use gestures to communicate all of their day-to-day requests.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>SARAH SLOAT:<\/strong> <em>&#8216;Scientists have identified 66 gestures that chimps use to communicate, theorizing that they resemble human language. Now, a new study shows these gestures actually follow human linguistic rules, revealing how our own language evolved. In a paper released in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, international scientists report that the chimpanzees of the Sonso community in Uganda\u2019s Budongo Forest Reserve, who they have observed for a long time, use language that is mathematically similar to our own. Co-author Cat Hobaiter, Ph.D., a lecturer at the University of St. Andrews, observed these wild chimps while conducting the first systematic study of their gestures.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible privilege to spend time with them \u2014 observing their lives in the forest; getting to know them as individuals,\u201d Hobaiter tells Inverse. \u201cWhen you first work with chimps there\u2019s a lot of noise and chaos! But with more time, you get to see that they use gestures to communicate all of their day-to-day requests, like \u2018Come here,\u2019 \u2018I want that,\u2019 \u2018Get lost!\u2019\u201d In this study, Hobaiter and her colleagues recorded the chimpanzees using gestural communication during social play&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>\u201cA lot of research has focused on exploring the similarities between primate vocalizations and language, but we\u2019ve been able to show that there are several unique features in ape gestures,\u201d Hobaiter says. \u201cThat means they probably played an important role in early hominin communication. This is another piece in the puzzle \u2014 some of the fundamental ways in which language is organized is shared with chimpanzee gesture&#8221; we\u2019ve been able to show that there are several unique features in ape gestures&#8230; Chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans share 98.8 percent of their DNA, so it stands to reason we may all share communication techniques as well&#8217;.<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inverse.com\/article\/53285-chimpanzee-language-human-similarity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>SOURCE&#8230;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED VIDEO:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pMgHTDJo3Uc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SARAH SLOAT: &#8216;Scientists have identified 66 gestures that chimps use to communicate, theorizing that they resemble human language. Now, a new study shows these gestures actually follow human linguistic rules, revealing how our own language evolved. In a paper released in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, international scientists report that the chimpanzees [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":756321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21,24],"tags":[32,33,34,36],"class_list":["post-756320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kisnship","category-science","tag-free-living","tag-intelligence","tag-personhood","tag-sentience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=756320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":756322,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756320\/revisions\/756322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/756321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=756320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=756320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/animalrightswatch.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=756320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}