Bonobos combine calls in similar ways to human language, study finds

[erronis]

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-bonobos-combine-similar-ways-human.html

Mia, a young bonobo female from the Fekako community, vocalizing in response to distant group members. Credit: Martin Surbeck, Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project

Bonobos—our closest living relatives—create complex and meaningful combinations of calls resembling the word combinations of humans.

A study, conducted by researchers at the University of Zurich and Harvard University, challenges long-held assumptions about what makes human communication unique and suggests that key aspects of language are evolutionarily ancient. The research is published in the journal Science.

The study has investigated the vocal behavior of wild bonobos in the Kokolopori Community Reserve (Democratic Republic of Congo). Researchers at the University of Zurich and Harvard University used novel methods borrowed from linguistics to demonstrate for the first time that, similarly to human language, bonobo vocal communication relies extensively on compositionality.

Compositionality is the capacity to combine meaningful words into phrases whose meaning is related to the meaning of the words and the way they are combined. In more trivial compositionality, the meaning of the combination is the addition of its parts: for example, "blond dancer" refers to a person who is both blond and a dancer.

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[GreenWave]

1. We could learn a lot from bonobos.

[erronis]

2. I know. I've read most of Frans de Waal's books. They are a mainly peaceful (and loving!) species.

I fear that homo sapiens are too much like chimpanzees in temperament - murderous, treacherous, deceitful, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Behavior