Chimps Can Speak?

Scientists are now claiming that chimpanzees have been able to speak all along, as an international team of researchers looked over old footage with fresh eyes.  

The researchers reviewed old experiment footage, some of chimps kept in grim, unethical conditions, as part of the study.   While  one might think the one word uttered by these caged primates would have been “help”, scientists believe they saw chimpanzees muttering “mama”.  Publishing their findings in Scientific Reports, researchers argue this discovery suggests chimps are capable of speaking in basic language.

In two unearthed videos, chimps appear to be capable of saying mama. One of them is of 'Johnny' the chimp who lived at the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor, Florida. In the comments section, the original poster wrote that the animal “called everyone Mama”. The second video, from 1962 released as part of Universal Studios’ series of newsreels, shows a chimp called Renata turning around to her handler who encourages her to say something sounding like mama.

Scientists then tested these ‘words’ with an online listening experiment, mixing the animal’s utterances with clips of people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  People were asked to listen to the audio clips and asked to write don the sounds they heard, phonetically – most participants agreed that Johnny and Renata were saying mama, scientists found.

A 1947 experiment involved Keith and Catherine Hayes adopting a chimp they named Viki, in to raise as a child. The couple claimed Viki could say simple words such a “mama”, “cup” and “up”, the paper reported.