How bonobos combine calls the way we combine words

Bonobos combine calls like we combine words. A new study found that in at least three call types one sound changes the meaning of another. This is the same pattern that makes bad dancer work in English. Scientists recorded over 700 calls from wild bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They built a dictionary of the apes' sounds and what each one means. The team from the University of Zurich and Harvard published their findings in Science. This kind of layered combination was thought to be unique to humans. But bonobos and humans share a common ancestor from 7 to 13 million years ago. That means the ability to combine sounds this way is much older than we thought.

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