8-3 Presentation

Topic Exploration Graphic Organizer

Link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190903134734.htm

Topic: Primates that include man and closest relatives’ monkeys can combine terms during

vocalizations. However, Old World monkeys cannot combine terms as much as humans do.

When comparing primate vocalizations, it was found that non-human primates, in particular,

Old World monkeys could only combine two terms unlike human primates who have the

potential to generate various terms in a language sequence.

Main idea: Old World monkeys that include baboons and proboscis monkeys have

different vocalizations to that of humans. They neither recombine language elements

nor link more than two items together like humans.

Supporting evidence:

1) Previous research indicates that some of the Old-World monkey

species like vervet monkeys and tamarin monkeys have alarm calls

when they see predators like eagles and leopards. The putty-nosed

monkey of West Africa combines calls when sending alarm

warnings. The general alarm call is “pyow” and warning for eagles

“hack.” These two items are sometimes combined into “pyow-hack”

sequence. The putty-nosed monkeys cannot rearrange “pyow-hack”

like humans. The “pyow” comes first then the “hack.”

2) The Campbell’s monkeys also combine two items during alarm

calls; “hok” for eagles and “krak” for leopards. As much as they add

“oo” suffix to these items, there utterances are fixed to the two

items that is not as complex as that of humans.

Questions

1.) If the monkeys can combine only two speech items, how did human beings evolve from this to be able to come up with infinite combinations?

2.) What is the relationship between human primate and non-human primate vocalizations?

3.) Is it possible for the primates to be taught how to communicate using the human language?

Information:

More research on scholarly articles including peer-reviewed journals on primate

vocalizations is appropriate for further research. Meaningful information can also be

obtained from books such as scientific books, university websites and newspapers.