The chimpanzee speaks surprisingly human language

A chimpanzee named Johnny from the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Florida (USA) can pronounce many human words, surprising many people.

For decades, researchers have assumed that the reason only humans can form meaningful sounds lies in the differences between primate brains.

The most intelligent apes besides humans, apes and chimpanzees, cannot do the same. However, in some cases chimpanzees or apes can pronounce many human words, surprising many people when they can pronounce many human words.

One of them is Johnny the chimpanzee from the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Florida (USA). In the video shared on YouTube, Johnny clearly said the word "mama" (meaning "mother" in Vietnamese) because he knew that if he pronounced it like that, he would be rewarded.

According to Axel Ekström, a cognitive scientist from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), primates today share the same ancestral origin millions of years ago, so he believes that some primates, like chimpanzees and apes, have the same auditory nervous system as us.

Among them, chimpanzees are the closest evolutionary relatives of humans. In fact, they have many human-like cognitive behaviors including empathy, a sense of fairness, and being able to cooperate to achieve goals.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 09 August 2024