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Bonobo Peeps May Be Necessary Language Precursors
咿呀学语
Babies sometimes laugh and sometimes cry. It doesn’t take a genius to decode the meaning of these sounds. But it isn’t quite as straightforward to decipher the meaning, if any, of an infant’s babbles. And humans a little older can make the same sounds regardless of how you actually feel—you’re able to say “I’m hungry” whether you’re ravenous or just gorged yourself.
小婴儿有时候哭有时候笑。要理解这些声音的含义并不需要找个天才就可以办到。但是，要解开这种声音之谜也并不是十分简单的，如果要说有这样的声音，就比如一个婴儿含糊不清的咿咿呀呀。人类稍大一些之后可以制造出此类声音，不管你的真实感觉是什么——无论你是十分饥饿还是只是馋嘴，你都能说我好饿阿，这样的句子。
Scientists think that the ability to make the same sounds across a range of emotional states is critical to language development. They also believe it to be uniquely human, because in previous studies of animal communication, researchers only observed fixed vocalizations. For example, bonobo chimpanzee pant-laughs and threat barks are tied to a specific emotion or behavior.
科学家们认为，制造出能横跨一系列感情色彩的声音这种能力，对语言的发展很重要。他们还相信，这是人类独有的能力，因为，在以前的有关动物交流方面的研究中，研究人员们只观察到了固定模式的发声。比如，倭猩猩气喘着大笑和威胁叫声都和一种特别的感情色彩或者行为密切相关。
But the new study finds evidence that bonobos in the wild are also capable of flexible vocalizations. Bonobos have a specific call type, a “peep” that they use independent of emotional context. They peep while eating, travelling, grooming, resting, engaging in sexual activity, and even during shows of aggression.
但最新一项研究发现野生倭猩猩也能够有灵活的发声。倭猩猩有一种特别的叫声，一种唧唧声被它们独立的运用到情感交流活动上。它们会在吃饭，旅行，理毛，休息，谈恋爱或者甚至在好斗侵略状态下发出这种唧唧声。
Because peeps, like a baby’s babbles, don’t convey meaningful information on their own, bonobos need to combine them with other calls and environmental context to supply meanings. Previously, researchers thought this type of complex, language-like comprehension was unique to humans. The study is in the journal PeerJ. [Zanna Clay, Jahmaira Archbold and Klaus Zuberbuhler, Functional flexibility in wild bonobo vocal behavior]
因为这种唧唧声，就像婴儿的咿咿呀呀，本身来讲并不会传递一些有意义的信息，倭猩猩需要将之运用到其它叫声以及实际环境中，才能表达出其中含义。以前，研究人员们认为这种复杂的类似于语言的理解只是人类特有。该研究已发表在PeerJ杂志上。
Bonobos are our closest evolutionary relatives, so it’s possible that the functional flexibility of human speech appeared in a common ancestor. This discovery adds to the growing pile of evidence that we’re not quite as special as we’ve long believed—and that our furry cousins may be even closer to us than we thought.
倭猩猩可是我们进化中的近亲哦，所以，人类语言的功能上的灵活性出现在另外一支有共同祖先的物种分支上的是极有可能的这个发现又使我们更加深刻认识到人类没有像长期以来我们相信的那样与众不同——并且我们和那些有毛的兄弟之间的亲戚关系比我们想象的还要近。
—Diana Kwon
