

Scientists use language and logic to translate monkey sounds into English - pepys
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/monkey-see-monkey-speak-video/

======
ternaryoperator
> ...some monkey dialects can be just as sophisticated as human language.

These kinds of throw-away claims are a form of perennial nonsense. Nothing in
the article suggests anything close to this being true. He looks at the shades
of meaning of three sounds and yet asserts a similar sophistication to human
speech.

It's a regular meme in animal articles that this group (monkeys here, other
times dolphins or whales) have language skills that rival humans. It's a kind
of warm fuzzy feel-good claim asserted regularly despite supporting evidence.

~~~
Houshalter
I don't think it's true but remember that decoding animal language is
ridiculously hard. Our understanding of it is basically "play sound - see what
animals say". And even that is nontrivial as the article points out.

Relevant farside comic:
[http://i.imgur.com/QSR2AfI.gif](http://i.imgur.com/QSR2AfI.gif)

~~~
Natsu
Whenever I see claims of animal language, I remember the Far Side cartoon
where everything the dogs say translates to "hey!"

~~~
EGreg
Sounds to me like the Yo app is the equivalent of dogs barking. And look how
many articles are written about its usefulness :))

------
jbuzbee
It's already been done for dogs:

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/FarsideDogTranslat...](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/FarsideDogTranslator.jpg)

------
canjobear
Here's a non-paywalled link to the paper, though I'm not positive that it is
the final version:

[http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001792](http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001792)

They give a game-theoretic formalization of their theory but I'm not sure that
the formalization adds much beyond the summary in the article.

------
shawnb576
I'd like to know if these sounds are learned, instinctual, or a mix of both.
IOW, if you placed a monkey raised elsewhere into this environment would it
know and/or adopt these sounds.

Isn't assigning meaning to otherwise-arbitrary symbols/sounds a key aspect of
language?

~~~
markburns
There is some non-arbitrariness to language.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect)

I guess it gets arbitrary at complex enough levels though.

I'd hazard a guess that hok and krak have some component of
instinctual/physical nature to them. I personally think that certain sounds
are related to physical experiences or expressions of emotions. Obvious ones
are surprise of "Oh!" with an open mouth.

"Hmmm" whilst thinking or concentrating, frowning and closing your mouth.

I'm currently watching my son learn to speak and his verbalizing seems pretty
closely tied to his emotions at the moment.

"Oishii" means delicious in Japanese and it seems something that makes sense
to say whilst you are smiling at enjoying your food. The long "ii" vowel to
rhyme with the "e" of "she" in English.

~~~
Morgawr
>"Oishii" means delicious in Japanese and it seems something that makes sense
to say whilst you are smiling at enjoying your food. The long "ii" vowel to
rhyme with the "e" of "she" in English.

Honestly, I don't necessarily agree. For example in Japanese 'iie' sounds very
similar to 'yes' or 'yeah' but it actually means the opposite, it means 'no',
whereas 'hai' means 'yes'.

If we want to talk about individual phonemes caused by emotional reactions,
there might be some truth behind what you're saying, however as soon a we
enter the realm of "this word sounds soft so it's positive" and "this word
sounds hard hence it's negative" everything collapses.

~~~
markburns
Obviously you can find tons of examples of words that are different in
different languages. I probably confused the situation by bringing Japanese
in. My son is Japanese so we talk in Japanese to a baby. I wasn't trying to
compare languages. I was trying to talk about baby words.

Yeah it falls apart at any level of complexity.

I just think there are certain cases in often used words and words that babies
say or hear a lot at first. Like the mama/haha/papa/baba words. I'm talking
about a 'language' in the same way the article talks about an animal language.
Like a few often used words linked to emotional states.

I don't mind if you disagree I just happen to believe oishii may be one of
these words.

------
yoha
For those who do not know about Kanzi, I recommend the documentary “Kanzi: An
Ape of Genius”
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBlDGX95eys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBlDGX95eys)).

------
ChuckMcM
How fun, I'm looking forward to using "Oh krak!" as an interjection. :-)

------
officialjunk
I would like to see something like this for human babies

~~~
winkywooster
Deb Roy's TED talk is kind of interesting on this subject. He captured the
initial 3 years of son's language development and did analysis on it.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word](http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word)

~~~
ajcarpy2005
Yes. I saw this when it was released and the data that was collected and
compiled is quite high quality compared to most related research efforts.
Science needs more research on human development and change over time. Even
something as simple as a photo of a person per day. Actually computers should
technically be able to unobtrusively measure our heart rate and breathing via
the cameras in laptops with the algorithm that amplifies subtle changes in
videos such as the redness color shift denoting heart rate and the rise/fall
of the abdomen to indicate the breathing rate.

------
tiglionabbit
STEEEEEVE!

Edit: What, you never saw "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"?

~~~
sethammons
Typically, the community downvotes comments that don't add to the discussion.

~~~
ionwake
I personally felt it added to the conversation. minus the edit.

