Computers Emulate Neanderthal Speech

Clarence writes "After some 30,000 years of silence, the Neanderthal race is once again speaking thanks to some advanced computer simulation. A Florida Atlantic University professor is using software vocal tract reconstructions to emulate the speech of our long-dead distant relatives. 'He says the ancient human's speech lacked the "quantal vowel" sounds that underlie modern speech. Quantal vowels provide cues that help speakers with different size vocal tracts understand one another, says Robert McCarthy, who was talking at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Columbus, Ohio, on April 11. In the 1970s, linguist Phil Lieberman, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, inferred the dimensions of the larynx of a Neanderthal based on its skull. His team concluded that Neanderthal speech did not have the subtlety of modern human speech.'"

Comments

Andre the Giant

[jmichaelg]

Several years ago, I was running to catch a plane at SF Airport and Andre the Giant came lumbering down the concourse going the other way. Seeing him in person was quite a shock because it drove home two key points that I hadn't noticed watching the Princess Bride.

1. He was truly huge. Not knowing how big Robert the Pirate was I didn't get a clear idea how big Andre was when they had their battle. At 7'4" and 500 pounds, he was easily the biggest man I've ever seen by far.
   
2. He had several features that suggested he had Neanderthal genes in his blood. He had a very pronounced brow ridge, the lumbering aspect you would expect of a Neanderthal and solid muscle mass.
   

I know that Neanderthals aren't thought to have cross bred with Cro-Magnon but seeing Andre in the flesh made me seriously doubt that theory. Perhaps we've recovered Neanderthal DNA and I'm all wet but absent definitive proof that no cross breeding was possible, Andre's collection of phenotypes suggests that cross breeding did take place. His acting suggested he was quite bright as playing dumb isn't that easy so if he indeed did have Neanderthal genes, it suggests Neanderthals died out for some reason other than intellect. Maybe they just assimilated over 50,000 years.