One might have trouble working out all the implications of British scientists’ findings that chimpanzees adopt the accents of other chimps when in a new environment.
ABC News reports that
After growing up in the Netherlands, nine chimpanzees who moved to the Edingburgh Zoo in Scotland five years ago are now reportedly sporting Scottish accents, apparently learned from their new Scottish zoo-mates.
According to a new study published in Current Biology, this breakthrough research is the first indication that chimps can learn different words, or tones, for different objects – in short, be bilingual.
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The underlying study, Vocal Learning in the Functionally Referential Food Grunts of Chimpanzees, may be found online at Cell Symposia.