The guest chimps must have been right out of kilter when they arrived!
GRUNTY CHIMPS 'blend in among locals' after moving to Scotland
Chimps imported to a Scottish zoo have learned to grunt like the locals, boffins have discovered, in a finding sure to wobble a few linguistic applecarts. Nine immigrant primates from a safari park in the Netherlands had been accustomed to using high pitched moans to call for apples, their favourite food, but all this changed …
COMMENTS
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Friday 6th February 2015 15:47 GMT smudge
Re: Maybe...
"So they've swapped "er, excuse me? may I have some fruit, good sir?" for "see you, pal - gi'us that apple or ah'll put in the heid"?"
Michty me, no! This is not Glasgow, this is Edinburgh Zoo, in the posh area of Corstorphine. What the poor beasts have learned is "You'll have had your tea, then?".
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Friday 6th February 2015 15:05 GMT Tikimon
Resistance is futile!
There is a risk, when observing other animals, that we will interpret their behavior through human values. We are right to be cautious about that. However, it has been taken far too far. Researchers resist ANY hint that an animal is doing something comparable to a human behavior.
This is pure hubris, based on the fallacy that we are not animals and are totally different from Them. We are not in fact special or different in any way, only in the degree of expression of certain behaviors.
Of course the chimps can learn to use the local vernacular! They don't simply vocalize at random because they're "aroused", how stupid. They want to communicate, and have learned what is the most effective locally.
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Friday 6th February 2015 15:25 GMT TitterYeNot
Re: Resistance is futile!
"This is pure hubris, based on the fallacy that we are not animals and are totally different from them. "
Well said, that man. And this one...
"Some of the monkeys read Nietzsche. The monkeys argue about Nietzsche; without given any consideration to the fact that Nietzsche...was just another monkey."
Ernest Cline - Dance, Monkeys, Dance
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Monday 9th February 2015 11:48 GMT Wzrd1
Re: Resistance is futile!
"There is a risk, when observing other animals, that we will interpret their behavior through human values."
Fair enough, although in this case, one order of chimpanzee was observing another, hairier variety of chimpanzee. The genetics don't lie.
"Of course the chimps can learn to use the local vernacular!"
Most certainly! Why, I've learned both proper English and Arabic via exposure to both groups in an environment foreign to myself and the UK citizens.
Although, I must admit an entire uncertainty as to *what* that chap from Liverpool was speaking.
Both sets of groups also learned a bit of American English, an abuse of the originating language by any measure of extremes.
"They want to communicate, and have learned what is the most effective locally."
See my two points above.
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Friday 6th February 2015 19:45 GMT Sarah Balfour
Re: chimp <-> human
Sorry to spoil the 'joke', but we didn't evolve from apes - we share a common ancestor who lived around 6 million (WHEW! I'm cured!) years ago.
Or, as the idiot creationists would put it "If we came from monkeys, why's there still monkeys…?"
Apes are our closest living relatives <insert your own mother-in-law/aunt/uncle/cousin/granddad, etc., gag here>.
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Monday 9th February 2015 11:51 GMT Wzrd1
Re: chimp <-> human
Fair enough.
So, go into a bar near a taxominists convention and ask the following question:
"Is it Pan Troglodytes or Homo Troglodytes, is it Homo Sapiens or Pan Sapiens"?
Then, stand off to the side for the bar room brawl.
For, genetically, our common ancestor wasn't that far off and there actually is a bit of heated discussion on just that subject.
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Friday 6th February 2015 18:16 GMT I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
Cells.
I wonder if they would take on the voice qualities of the average human around here. Sitting in my front room with the doors and windows closed to keep out the cold winter air, I had to get up to check on the kind of creature that can be heard across the road through double glazing from inside a closed car, speaking on a phone.
(The driver didn't seem worried that the monkey could get out easily if he learns how the door handles work.)