Chimpanzees have an intricate language system experts never thought possible.
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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.