In a new study conducted by researchers at the Indianapolis Zoo, the exact pitch and tone of human sounds were observed in the mimicry of an Orangutan. The research team on this study say that this discovery gives us incredible insight into the "evolutionary origin of human speech". It was commonly thought that
speech originated in humans but with this new discovery, it may just be our great ape ancestors that originated speech patterns.
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| Rocky the Orangutan who was able to mimic human vocal patterns |
Its believed that rocky picked up on this ability during his time spent in entertainment. (
follow this link to see Rocky with fergie.)The researchers observed that Rocky's noises are proof that great pass have the ability and brain capacity to control their muscles in order to create sounds in a somewhat conversational manner.
Crazy to think we share 97% of DNA with these creatures and yet no one has ever documented such a close relationship to human speech patterns and Orangutan mimicry!
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/science/rocky-the-orangutan-mimic-sounds.html?action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
This article is very interesting to me because I am also very surprised to discover that this type of mimicry has never been observed in organgutans before. It makes sense to me that our speech patterns would originate from the these species because we are so closely related to them. I am curious to know if we will find similar speech patterns in other orangutans now that we know it's possible.
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