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Language Log » Animal calls are not comparable to human speech

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But can they still tell us something useful about language? Here are two new papers that address that question: I. "What the Hidden Rhythms of Orangutan Calls Can Tell Us about Language – New Research." De Gregorio, Chiara. The Conversation, May 27, 2025. In the dense forests of Indonesia, you can hear strange and haunting sounds. At first, these calls may seem like a random collection of noises – but my rhythmic analyses reveal a different story. Those noises are the calls of Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii), used to warn others about the presence of predators. Orangutans belong to our animal family – we’re both great apes. That means we share a common ancestor – a species that lived millions of years ago, from which we both evolved. Like us, orangutans have hands that can grasp, they use tools and can learn new things. We share about 97% of our DNA with orangutans, which means many parts of our bodies and brains work in similar ways. That’s why studying orangutans can also help us

Language Log >> Animal calls are not comparable to human speech Language Log Home About Comments policy Animal calls are not comparable to human speech June 26, 2025 @ 12:39 pm &#183; Filed by Victor Mair under Animal communication , Language and animals << Taiwanese Twosome: tea and Sino-Korean | Computational phylogeny of Indo-European >> --> << previous post | next post >> But can they still tell us something useful about language? Here are two new papers that address that question: I. " What the Hidden Rhythms of Orangutan Calls Can Tell Us about Language &#8211; New Research ." De Gregori

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