Video of chimpanzee saying "mama" prompts research: but the truth may reveal humanity's cruel nature

After analyzing old videos of chimpanzees in captivity, scientists concluded that animals with 98.8% human DNA could pronounce the human word: "mama". However, scientists stopped their research on primates because they were not very humane, and therefore lost time to uncover the truth: whether apes could really speak like humans.

Until now, there have been two theories as to why chimpanzees cannot produce human speech sounds: either it is a physiological problem or they lack the pathways in their brains to produce sound. However, new research by scientists has cast doubt on the idea that chimpanzees do not have the "building blocks" for speech, The NewYorkTimes reports.

A team of scientists watched old videos of two chimpanzees, named Johnny and Renata, saying the word "mom". They had a lot of questions, including how these primates were forced to learn. After all, it is known that previous scientific research on great apes was conducted using procedures that do not meet ethical standards today. Scientists explain that the "research subjects" were traumatized, and their emotional, environmental, and social needs were not met. It is known that many of the subjects were taken from their mothers in the wild and subjected to "neglect and abuse".

To test whether humans can understand what primates say, researchers set up an experiment. The voices of chimpanzees were mixed with the voices of people who had been diagnosed with speech pathology due to Parkinson's disease. Each voice spoke only a few words, and the study participants did not know that the two voices actually came from chimpanzees.

Most participants in the experiment agreed that the chimpanzees were indeed saying "mom". The results of the study indicate that chimpanzees were capable of learning voice. The team of scientists stated that "chimpanzees can produce the predictable 'first words of spoken language'."

Scientists have come to the conclusion that chimpanzees have been underestimated in the past, because the primates did indeed possess the necessary neural pathways for speech and had the necessary "building blocks" in their brains to construct language. "Great apes can create human words. The inability to demonstrate this half a century ago was the fault of researchers, not the animals," the scientists concluded.

However, not all experts share this opinion. "This article is a good example of a tug-of-war in the field of 'monkey language'. What monkeys do with their voices has nothing to do with human language," said Julia Fischer, a cognitive researcher at the German Primate Center in Göttingen.

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