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Origins of human speech found

16.06.2012

A study by scientists from Vienna and Princeton Universities refutes the conventional wisdom about the evolution of human speech.

Scientists traditionally explain the evolutionary origin of human speech by expanding the vocal capabilities of primates: their buzzing, hooting, cooing, etc. However, Austrian and American scientists have found that, unlike the "speech" of primates, human speech is produced with the help of rapid controlled movements of the tongue, lips and jaw. In addition, human speech is a skill acquired through learning, while in primates it is innate.

Researchers at Princeton and the University of Vienna have used x-ray video to study how monkeys speak. First of all, the researchers focused on the lips, since they produce many of the facial expressions used for communication.

Unlike the larynx, at first glance, the lips produce only simple hollow smacking sounds (like "p"). But X-ray video shows that lip smacking is actually a very complex movement, requiring fast, coordinated movements of the lips, jaws, tongue, and hyoid bone, which provides support for the skeleton of the larynx and tongue. These movements have a high rate of about 5 cycles per second, which is much faster than chewing movements (about 2,5 cycles per second). Thus, although lip smacking looks like "fake chewing", they are actually different movements.

These observations support a long-standing hypothesis that the roots of human speech words lie not in the abilities of the larynx of primates, but in their facial expressions, which can convey a lot of information. It was from her that human words "grew". In particular, the alternation of vowels and consonants that forms the syllables of our speech is strikingly similar to the movements that underlie lip smacking.

Interestingly, chimpanzees also try to make communicative sounds with their lips, such as lip clapping loudly or honking. In addition, orangutans can learn to whistle - again the sound is made using the lips and tongue, not the larynx. Taken together, these data suggest that the origin of words is based on a combination of "traditional" sounds (sounds produced by the vocal cords) with rapid movements of the elements of the vocal tract, which are very similar to primate facial expressions. However, the origin of our "melodious" speech, which requires complex control of the larynx, is still a mystery.

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