Chimpanzees, It Turns Out, Have Accents

Chimpanzees, it now appears, have regional accents. Scientists have reported that young chimpanzees living in different corners of Africa do not sound alike, and that the gap between them widens as the animals grow older.

Čini se da čimpanze imaju regionalne naglaske. Znanstvenici izvještavaju da mlade čimpanze koje žive u različitim kutovima Afrike ne zvuče jednako, i da se ta razlika među njima povećava kako životinje stare.

The research team worked through more than eleven thousand recorded calls from infants and juveniles at two sites, a rescue centre in Zambia and a national park in Tanzania. They sorted the recordings into grunts, whimpers and laughter, then measured them. The youngest animals sounded broadly alike regardless of location. The older ones did not: each group had drifted toward its own particular manner of grunting.

Istraživački je tim prošao kroz više od jedanaest tisuća snimljenih oglašavanja mladunčadi i mladih životinja na dva mjesta, u centru za spašavanje u Zambiji i nacionalnom parku u Tanzaniji. Snimke su razvrstali na gunđanje, cviljenje i smijeh, a zatim ih izmjerili. Najmlađe su životinje zvučale uglavnom slično, bez obzira na lokaciju. Starije nisu: svaka je skupina s vremenom razvila svoj poseban način gunđanja.

That drift is the arresting part, since chimpanzee calls were long presumed fixed at birth, encoded in the animal rather than absorbed from its neighbours. If a young chimpanzee is instead soaking up the sound of the group around it, much as a child absorbs the vowels of a particular street without being taught them, then accent may be an older habit than anyone had been prepared to admit.

Upravo je ta promjena najzanimljiviji dio, jer se dugo pretpostavljalo da su oglašavanja čimpanza urođena i nepromjenjiva, ugrađena u životinju, a ne preuzeta od susjeda. Ako mlada čimpanza umjesto toga upija zvuk skupine oko sebe, slično kao što dijete upija samoglasnike određene ulice a da ga nitko tome ne poučava, onda bi naglasak mogao biti mnogo starija navika nego što je itko bio spreman priznati.