Chimpanzees can combine words to create idioms

New research offers fascinating insights into how human language developed.

Chimpanzees Asanti and Akuna vocalising/ Liran Samuni, Taï Chimpanzee Project

Astonishing new research sheds light on how chimpanzees communicate — and how human language may have evolved.

Scientists spent time studying several groups of chimpanzees in the Ivory Coast to better understand how they speak with each other.

They found that the apes combined vocalizations in unique ways that created unique new meanings, similar to “how humans use idioms or change the order of words to build new phrases.” Through combining these different sounds, the chimps could create a wide variety of meanings.

Evan Bush reports for NBC:

The new research is the first time scientists have documented such complexity in a nonhuman communication system, and they think that the chimpanzees’ abilities represent an evolutionary transition point between rudimentary animal communication and human language.

“Generating new or combined meanings by combining words is a hallmark of human language,” Catherine Crockford, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who co-directs the Tai Chimpanzee Project, said in a news release. “It is crucial to investigate whether a similar capacity exists in our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos.”

Crockford’s mention of bonobos refers to another recent study that found that they too combine sounds to alter meanings of vocalizations.

Scientists are looking at these two studies combined as a way to better understand how human communication developed and when. The evidence suggests that humans, chimps and bonobos may have had a common ancestor that developed the ability to communicate in complex ways.

Why did apes develop this ability? It may have been all about relationships, according to Simon Townsend, an expert in primate cognition at the University of Zurich.

For bonobos and chimpanzees, “the biggest challenge for them is navigating their complex social world. They live in much larger groups. … There’s aggression, there’s reconciliation, there’s territoriality, there’s intergroup interactions, and vocalizations, I think, is one evolutionary solution to trying to manage these complex and fine-grained social interactions,” Townsend said.

I’ve always felt awe when learning about — or meeting — monkeys and apes and realizing how similar we are. This study and its findings underscore those similarities.

If you’re interested in diving deeper into the study, you can read the original research article here. It has a fascinating appendix that explains the different type of events where vocalizations took place, such as “Fusion” (Join a party after at least 30 min of absence, or be joined by one or several others after 30 min of absence) and “Beg,” (Request food or tools from the possessor, or request to be breastfed or carried by the mother).