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Monkeys Show Language Recognition

Posted by samzenpus on from the 100-different-words-for-banana dept.

mmmscience writes "The cotton-top tamarin monkeys can apparently tell the difference between suffixes and prefixes. They will turn to face the direction of recorded words when they hear the nonsense syllables "bi-shoy" change to "shoy-bi." The lead author, Ansgar Endress, suggests that this is just like how human infants learn language, by tracking the beginning and ends of words."

4 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. No need to worry, yet... by retech · · Score: 4, Funny

    The moment they react to: "Get your stinkin' paws off me you damn dirty ape." Then we need to panic.

  2. Re: by bsDaemon · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's a not-too-modest proposal you have there...

  3. !nonsense by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sho Yi Bi is a real word in a Chinese dialect.... so what they really heard was,

    "nonsense nonsense nonsense hotmonkeysex"

  4. Re:foo != oof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not surprisingly, animals can tell when a fricative (and vowel) followed by a plosive (and vowel) change place.

    For those unfamiliar with these terms, let me demonstrate them in a sentence for you: 'The new Transformers movie was frican plosive.'