BBC: Our primate cousins have surprised and impressed scientists in recent years, with revelations about monkeys’ tool-using abilities and chimps’ development of complex sign language.
But researchers are still probing the question: why are we humans the only apes that can talk?That puzzle has now led to an insight into how different non-human primates’ brains are “wired” for vocal ability.A new study has compared different primate species’ brains.It revealed that primates with wider “vocal repertoires” had more of their brain dedicated to controlling their vocal apparatus.That suggests that our own speaking skills may have evolved as our brains gradually rewired to control that apparatus, rather than purely because we’re smarter than non-human apes.
Humans and other primates have very similar vocal anatomy – in terms of their tongues and larynx. That’s the physical machinery in the throat which allows us to turn air into sound.
So, as lead researcher Dr Jacob Dunn from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge explained, it remains a mystery that only human primates can actually talk.