Why don’t monkeys talk to us?

New research tells us that if our primate cousins don’t do language, it’s not because of their vocal tracts. Those appear to be speech-ready. So if the voice is good to go, what’s the holdup?

Daniel is talking apes with Ben and Kylie on this episode of Talk the Talk.


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Promo

Promo with Coel Healy, 31 Jan 2017: Monkeys

Cutting Room Floor

Cutting Room Floor 273: Voice of the Apes

So this is what Kylie gets up to when we’re not around — tries to imitate Daniel’s accent, to hilarious effect. When Ben arrives, he tells us what improvised goodness he’s been up to.

Then it’s more about what makes language language. And why ants are so stupid.


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Show notes

Swearing meme

Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty
https://www.academia.edu/29725191/Frankly_we_do_give_a_damn_The_relationship_between_profanity_and_honesty

People who swear tend to be more honest
http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/21/14341850/profanity-swearing-honesty-linguistics-language

People who curse a lot have better vocabularies than those who don’t, study finds
http://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-curse-a-lot-have-better-vocabularies-than-those-who-don-t-study-finds

Swearing More Is Actually A Sign Of Having A Better Vocabulary, Study Finds
http://www.iflscience.com/brain/knowing-more-swear-words-linked-wider-vocabulary-study-finds/

People Who Can Swear A Lot Found To Have Larger Vocabularies, So Suck It
http://uproxx.com/life/swearing-correlates-with-bigger-vocabulary-f-ck-yeah-it-does/

Julia Roberts vs. Sally Field in Celebrity Curse Off
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0swXMgM284o

Orangutan Found To Mimic Human Speech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpoydpDHT8A

Voice control in orangutan gives clues to early human speech
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/du-vci072616.php

Monkeys Could Talk, but They Don’t Have the Brains for It
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/science/monkeys-speech.html

Monkey vocal tracts are speech-ready
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/12/e1600723

Fitch (and von Humboldt) on monkey talk
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/

New Thoughts on the Origins of Human Speech
http://www.archaeology.org/news/5197-170112-baboons-vowels-speech

Baboons use vowel sounds strikingly similar to humans
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/baboons-show-they-ve-got-another-building-block-language-vowellike-sounds

Why a lowered larynx is good for human speech production
http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/mark/Lowered_larynx_MJJ_York_Jan_2010.pdf

The descended larynx is not uniquely human.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1088793/

From Grunting To Gabbing: Why Humans Can Talk
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129083762

Why monkeys can’t talk—and what they would sound like if they could
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/why-monkeys-can-t-talk-and-what-they-would-sound-if-they-could

Lemurs groom-at-a-distance through vocal networks
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347215003474

‘Baby talk’ in marmoset monkeys
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170116091416.htm

Rogue Scientists Race to Save Climate Data from Trump
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/rogue-scientists-race-save-climate-data-trump/

President Trump ordered the National Park Service to find photos that made his inauguration look huge
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/27/president-trump-ordered-the-national-park-service-to-find-photos-that-made-his-inauguration-look-huge/

Trump admin tells National Park Service to halt tweets
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/21/politics/trump-national-park-service-tweets/

Online Etymology Dictionary: rogue
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=rogue

Here’s a List of All the U.S. Govt’s Rogue Twitter Accounts Fighting Trump’s Crackdown on Science
http://www.core77.com/posts/60230/Heres-a-List-of-All-the-US-Govts-Rogue-Twitter-Accounts-Fighting-Trumps-Crackdown-on-Science

These 24 ‘rogue’ Twitter accounts claim to be from federal agencies
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-list-rogue-twitter-accounts-from-federal-agencies-20170125-htmlstory.html

Wikipedia: Samizdat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat

DataRefuge
https://www.datarefuge.org/about

Stony Brook student held at JFK in Trump travel ban released
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/stony-brook-student-held-at-jfk-in-trump-travel-ban-released-1.13032310


Image credit: http://www.simplish.org/media/images/gorilla.gif


Transcript

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