“ Baboons are very sensitive to who stands where in their society’s hierarchy. If played a recording of a superior baboon threatening an inferior, and the latter screaming in terror, baboons will pay no attention — this is business as usual in baboon affairs. But when researchers concoct a recording in which an inferior’s threat grunt precedes a superior’s scream, baboons will look in amazement toward the loudspeaker broadcasting this apparent revolution in their social order. ”

In Monkey Babble, Seeking Key to Human Language Development - NYT.

mills:

This article astonished me. I plan on using this exact baboon technique to sow hierarchical confusion at my office. Also:

“The Campbell’s monkeys give a “krak” alarm call when they see a leopard. But adding an “-oo” changes it to a generic warning of predators. One context for the krak-oo sound is when they hear the leopard alarm calls of another species, the Diana monkey. The Campbell’s monkeys would evidently make good reporters since they distinguish between leopards they have observed directly (krak) and those they have heard others observe (krak-oo).”

I was unaware of many of the amazing linguistic phenomena described in the piece, and neither did I know that there is a justification for the reticence of primates who have the capacity to speak as humans do: “There is nothing to talk about for a chimp because he has no interest in talking about it.”

It’s also the only mainstream media article I have ever seen receive praise from the linguists at Language Log.

Jan 13 2010, 7:01pm

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    It’s also the only mainstream media article I have ever seen receive praise from the linguists at Language Log.
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