Chimpanzees use some features of language to talk to each other

New research suggests wild chimpanzees have developed a far more nuanced communication system than previously realized.

New research suggests wild chimpanzees have developed a far more nuanced communication system than previously realized, using several mechanisms that combine their vocalizations to create new meaning.

These elements of chimpanzee communication, described in a study published Friday in the journal Science Advances, resemble some of the fundamental building blocks of human language.

Scientists analyzed recordings of three groups of chimpanzees living in the Ivory Coast and found that chimps can combine their hoots, grunts and calls in a similar way to how humans use idioms or change the order of words to build new phrases.

The new research is the first time scientists have documented such complexity in a nonhuman communication system, and they think that the chimpanzees’ abilities represent an evolutionary transition point between rudimentary animal communication and human language.

“Generating new or combined meanings by combining words is a hallmark of human language,” Catherine Crockford, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who co-directs the Tai Chimpanzee Project, said in a news release. “It is crucial to investigate whether a similar capacity exists in our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos.”