This is The Coolest Thing About The Secret Language Chimps Use to Communicate

Chimpanzees have an intricate language system experts never thought possible.

Transcript

00:00Chimpanzees are one of our closest biological cousins, but while we have an intricate system

00:08of vocal language, they're left with grunts and other simple vocalizations. Or are they?

00:13According to a new study of thousands of wild chimp recordings from along Africa's ivory coast,

00:18they might have a more complex language than previously thought. Researchers analyzed around

00:225,000 chimp recordings, consisting of over 900 hours of vocalizations, and they found some 390

00:29distinct and unique vocalizations, which they say are much like sentences, pieced together from other

00:34vocalizations to create more complex meanings. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

00:39researcher Tatiana Bortolato had this to say about the research.

00:43Our findings highlight a vocal communication system in chimpanzees that is much more complex

00:48and structured than previously thought. The 390 sentences were comprised of just 12 vocalizations,

00:54including grunts, barks, screams, and more, with the researchers adding that this language

00:59goes well beyond what anyone thought possible within the non-human primate community.