Primate Vocalizations and Human Linguistic Ability

Abstract

Some representative vocalizations of captive rhesus monkey, chimpanzee, and gorilla were recorded and analyzed by means of sound spectrograms and oscillograms. It was found that these animals' vocal mechanisms do not appear capable of producing human speech. The laryngeal output was breathy and irregular. A uniform cross section, schwalike configuration appeared to underlie all the vocalizations. These animals did not modify the shape of their supralaryngeal vocal tracts by means of tongue maneuvers during a vocalization. Formant transitions occurred in some vocalizations, but they appeared to have been generated by means of laryngeal and possibly velar or lip movements. The nonhuman primates lack a pharyngeal region like man's, where the cross-sectional area continually changes during speech. The data suggest that speech cannot be viewed as an overlaid function that makes use of a vocal tract that has evolved solely for respiratory and deglutitious purposes; the skeletal evidence of human evolution shows a series of changes from the primate vocal tract that may have been, in part, for the purpose of generating speech. Articulate speech may not have been fully developed in some of man's ancestors. The study of the peripheral speech-production apparatus of a fossil thus may be useful in the assessment of its phylogenetic grade.