What would monkeys sound like if they spoke? We’ve seen this question become reality when the movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the original Planet of the Apes were released for our theaters. In the original series, we see monkeys have taken over in place of humanity and have evolved to speak the same as humans and pretty much replaced us completely. So I return to the same question, if monkeys could speak today, what would they sound like?
Researchers from the University of Austria and Princeton University have been working closely with macaque monkeys and have discovered that their vocal tracts are flexible enough to mimic human speech. The only issue is that they lack the brain capacity to match humans in order to be able to utilize proper speech.
“For four decades, the inability of non-human primates to produce human speech sounds has been claimed to stem from limitations in their vocal tract anatomy, a conclusion based on plaster casts made from the vocal tract of a monkey cadaver, our findings imply that the evolution of human speech capabilities required neural changes rather than modifications of vocal anatomy.”
With the use of computer technology, the team of researches have created what human speech would sound like if macaque monkeys could speak. Per the researchers, macaque monkeys vocal anatomy is perfectly ready for speech, however, their minds are not. With that, here’s the sound byte of a macaque speaking, “Will you marry me?” As fascinating as this is, it’s pretty creepy and I sincerely hope that monkeys don’t speak anytime soon.
Source: Science Alert
from Nerd Reactor
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