Monkeys May Technically Be Able to Speak

A genus of primates found in Asia and Africa known as Macaques have been determined to have the physical capacity to speak in language, according to a study published in Science Advances. According to Popular Science, “using X-rays, researchers were able to determine the range of motion of macaque vocal structures.” through these xrays researchers simulated a 3 dimensional model of the monkey mouth and throat, and mapped the air flow through the space. They were able to recreate hypothetical sounds that they could in theory produce but don’t.  This For decades we understood it to be that monkeys throats and mouths were not set up for it, that they’re anatomy stood in the way. However unlike parraots who can vocalize without understanding the concepts they’re talking about, monkeys have the mental capacity to graps at least some of the ideas.

Using a computer model of the vocal tract, “researchers discovered that a macaque could, in theory, ‘produce comprehensible vowel sounds – and even full sentences – with its vocal tract if it had the neural ability to speak.'” This showed that in fact they had 8 times larger phonetic potential than the last research concluded back in 1969.  The researchers believe the vocal structures of the Macaques likely evolved a long time ago. “For researchers studying human evolution, this suggests that proto-humans had a wide vocal range long before developing speech as we know it.”