SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT

Chimpanzee language:
Communication gestures translated
By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News
4 July 2014
Researchers say they have translated the meaning of gestures that wild chimpanzees
use to communicate.
They say wild chimps communicate 19 specific messages to one another with a
"lexicon" of 66 gestures.
The scientists discovered this by following and filming communities of chimps in
Uganda, and examining more than 5,000 incidents of these meaningful exchanges.
The research is published in the journal Current Biology.
There's another species out there that is meaningful in its communication
Dr Catherine Hobaiter University of St Andrews
Dr Catherine Hobaiter, who led the research, said that this was the only form of
intentional communication to be recorded in the animal kingdom.
Only humans and chimps, she said, had a system of communication where they
deliberately sent a message to another individual.
"That's what's so amazing about chimp gestures," she told BBC News.
"They're the only thing that looks like human language in that respect."




Shout or signal?
Although previous research has revealed that apes and monkeys can understand
complex information from another animal's call, the animals do not appear to use their
voices intentionally to communicate messages.
This was a crucial difference between calls and gestures, Dr Hobaiter said.
"It's a bit like if you pick up a hot cup of coffee and you scream and blow on your
fingers," she said.
"I can understand from that that the coffee was hot, but you didn't necessarily intend to
communicate that to me."



Subtle signals
Some of the chimps' gestures, the researchers say, are unambiguous - used
consistently to convey one meaning.
Leaf clipping, for example, where a chimp very obviously takes small bites from leaves
is used only to elicit sexual attention.
Many others, though, appear to be ambiguous. A grab, for example, is used for: "Stop
that," "Climb on me," and "Move away."
Although many are very subtle, some of the footage captured by the researchers shows
very clearly what the chimps mean to convey.
Chimps will check to see if they have the attention of the animal with which they wish to communicate
In one clip, a mother presents her foot to her whimpering offspring, signalling: "Climb on
me." The youngster immediately jumps on to its mother's back and they travel off
together.
"The big message [from this study] is that there is another species out there that is
meaningful in its communication, so that's not unique to humans," said Dr Hobaiter.

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"I don't think we're quite as set apart as we would perhaps like to think we are.
"But then chimps are more closely related to us than they are to the rest of the great
apes, so it makes sense that we are incredibly similar to them in many ways."
Dr Susanne Shultz, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Manchester, said the
study was commendable in seeking to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the evolution of
human language. But, she added, the results were "a little disappointing".
"The vagueness of the gesture meanings suggest either that the chimps have little to
communicate, or we are still missing a lot of the information contained in their gestures
and actions," she said.
"Moreover, the meanings seem to not go beyond what other less sophisticated animals
convey with non-verbal communication.
"So, it seems the gulf remains."