"Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered"

This article is about the Campbell's Monkey, a fellow primate that lives in the forests of the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast, they have developed a language that can now be deciphered. The adult males have six types of call, each with a specific meaning, but they can string two or more calls together into a message with a different meaning. A group led by Klaus Zuberbuhler of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have spent moths recording the monkeys' calls in response to both natural and artificial stimuli. This group argues that the Campbell's monkeys have a primate form of syntax. This statement is likely to be a controversial claim because despite extensive efforts to teach chimpanzees language, the subjects showed little or no ability to combine the sounds they learned into a sentence with a larger meaning. Still, species like gibbons and whaled make complex vocalizations in which the order of the sound seems to have some effect on their meaning. The team still have reports of deciphering some of the Campbell's monkey's communications. For example, "Krak" is a call that warns of leopards in the vicinity. The monkey's gave it in response to real leopards and to model leopards or leopard growls broadcasted by the researchers. The monkeys can vary the call by adding the suffix "-oo:"krak-oo" seems to be a general work for predator. The "boom-boom" call invites other monkeys to come toward the male making the sound. Two booms can be combined with a series of "krak-oos," with a meaning entirely different to that of wither of its components. "Boom boom krak-oo krak-oo krak-oo" is the monkey's version of "Timber!" or a warning of falling trees. The meaning of monkey calls was first worked out with vervet monkeys. which have distinct alarm calls for each of their three main predators, the martial eagle, leopards, and snakes, but the vervets did not combine their alarm calls to generate new meanings. If the Zuberbühler team’s observations are correct, the Campbell’s monkeys can both vary the meaning of specific calls by adding suffixes and combine calls to generate a different meaning. Their call system, the researchers write, “may be the most complex example of ‘proto-syntax’ in animal communication known to date.” Dr. Zuberbühler said he planned to play back recordings of given calls to the Campbell’s monkeys and to test from their reactions whether he had correctly decoded their messaging system. I thought this article was very interesting. I think that we could learn a lot from monkeys because they are the most human-like creature. It would be a great discovery if they are right about what they have deciphered. I also think many other kinds of monkeys have speech like these ones, but we just haven't discovered it yet. I would like to learn more about what happens next, if they decipher more or if they find more mokey's in which have a language too.