The Language-Unready Primate

Science Advances has published a briefreport byW. Tecumseh Fitch,Bart de Boer and others whose finding is summed up in the title, “Monkey vocal tracts are speech-ready.” The authors investigated the sounds made by monkeys and concluded that they show enough variation to permit a decent vocabulary. Thus, it cannot have been changes in the vocal tract that got speech rolling.I am reporting these results because of my respect for both Fitch and de Boer, and because theNew York Times picked up the story and had it covered by my longtime friend Carl Zimmer. But truthfully I cannot see why theTimes bothered. I suppose the reed instruments of Hayden ’s day were “jazz-ready,” yet nobody played Benny Goodman. It is so uncontroversial as to be banal to say that it takes more than a vocal tract to produce speech.First, primates had to get voluntary control of their vocalizations. Chimpanzees have voluntary control of their hands and, thus, can be taught the rudiments of sign language. They seem to have almost no voluntary control of their vocalizations and despite extensive training efforts do not learn to say words.Next, our vocal tracts do differ from those of apes and we have much more precise control of our tongue and lips. Presumably, these refinements came after our lineage began talking. They are part of the story of how the lineage changed once language had begun, not part of the origins tale itself.Third, even though chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas are all able to ...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Source Type: blogs