why can't our "closest" relatives....monkeys/chimps etc,....TALK?

Question

there are so many birds that can mimic humans,
however monkeys can't...!

since these are our "closest" relatives i would have thought they would pick it up easy!

so why have birds evolved vocaly quicker than chimps.....strange!

Answer 1

Maybe they think that our language is too stupid to learn/repeat.
Anyway just because we haven't heard them, doesn't mean they can't.

Answer 2

In evolution, there is a theory of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". One of the other answers stated that primates do not have voice boxes. This is incorrect. They do. And primates DO vocalize, just not in the same way. Primates have an extensive "volcabulary" of cries, grunts, growls, ect that they use to communicate such things as fear, aggression, alarm, ect. Primates fill a specific "niche" (this is an ecology term meaning a specialized place, you can research it more), and since they are happy fulling this niche, the speices has not gone extinct. Once the niche is either gone or changed, a species must either evolve or they will go extinct. Sometimes a part of the species will evolve and be able to fill a new niche in the environment, and that is where you get a new species. So, speaking theoretically (b/c it is only a theory that humans evolved from primates...but Evolution is an actual proven scientific fact), some primates deveolped human-like traits (speech, walking upright, ect), but since there was still a niche for the primates there was no need for them to disappear. So then you get both animals, humans and primates, that have very different functions.
Now for the birds, they do not have a vocabulary like us, and they do not understand the meanings. The only birds that can mimic our sounds, are species of birds that have evolved to mimic many sounds (like the songs of other birds). Somehow this was advantagous to the species to be able to do this (I don't know what that is).
I hope this explained things a little.

Answer 3

Higher primates are humans, apes and chimps, not monkeys. Talking is a human trait, only humans can talk. Animals communicate with voice signals, various sounds and body language. Assuming an animal can learn to speak like a human is a considerable leap. It takes intelligence, learning and good retention to speak. None of those traits are shared by other higher primates or birds.

There is a whole lot of difference between talking and mimicry. Birds have to be taught and few birds can remember more than just a few words they are taught.

There is really no connection between human speech, bird mimicry and chimpanzee sounds.

Or is this another faulty attempt to bash evolution.

Answer 4

Our closest genetic species is the bonobo. Construction of head, tongue, and throat does not allow for speech in any of the seven Great Apes other than humans. However, what they do have cannot choke while swallowing. Get a little, give a little.

Google
koko ameslan gorilla 445 hits

A gorilla trained to communicate in American Sign Language from birth is still poorly communicative - better than Head Start but not nearly as good as the Algonquin Round Table.

Answer 5

Some birds can make human sounds...that is not the same as talking. When we talk, we do not do so as mimicry. Conversation would be amazingly dull if it was!

Talking is far more complex than making the noise of a human voice. If you've ever been to a BNP meeting...you'll know what I mean!

Monkey's do generally have far more capacity than any other animals to develop the need to have a language, and consequently the need to develop a way to express that language...but they are several millenia away in evolutionary terms from even beginning to move in the direction of talking.


ADDED:

Oh look!...Clever Hans has found the thumbs downbutton!!

Answer 6

Depends what you mean by talk. A parrot can mimic sounds. A parrot can be taught to sing opera. A parrot doesn't understand what the opera means, or that the person who taught it got a note flat. The parrot just repeats.

To a certain extent you can teach a parrot that a certain sound gets it certain things, and it will say "Polly wants a cracker," to get food. I've heard of one parrot that mimicked the sound of the can opener to bring the cat running.

So there are the sounds of speech and the meaning of speech. Simply put, chimps have a very different structure to the throat/larynx/mouth than humans. This has some advantages. It is physically impossible for a chimp to "swallow the wrong way" and get water or food into the trachea (the tube that runs to the lungs). We got that risk in exchange for positioning our larynx where we can more easily use it to vocalize.

But chimps can be taught language, so long as they don't have to speak it. Back in the early days of language research (1950's), some chimps were raised side by side with human infants of the same age. When they both were in their two's, the human had a vocabulary of hundreds of words, while the chimpanzee could say "cup," "ma," "da" and a few others. But the chimp was much more physically adriot than the human.

This led to experiments in the 1960's and 1970's with chimps like Washoe and gorillas like Koko. Instead of trying to teach these animals to speak, they were taught to communicate with American Sign Language. Other chimps were taught to communicate with computers, pressing buttons to indicate nouns, verbs, etc.

Chimps and gorillas developed vocabularies of hundreds of signs. They began to invent their own signs. (Koko calls radishes "Cry Hurt Food.") And most interestingly, some chimps who were taught sign language went on to teach it to another chimp who was not being taught sign language. As the chimps matured and reproduced, they routinely taught their children sign language.

Dolphins also have been taught to communicate with people. Dolphins are taught to respond to hand signals and some even to speak as a modification of their normal vocalizations. This is very difficult for them. They simply aren't built for it. But Carl Sagan tells the story of visiting a research station in Hawaii, where he was petting, scratching, and stroking a dolphin. As he moved to get up and leave, the dolphin said "More." When he excitedly reported this to the head of research, the scientist simply asked, "Well, did he use it in context?"

Answer 7

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Answer 8

Most birds cannot talk, but use mimicry.

Primates lack the same tongue, lips, and vocal chord we do to produce sound, so cannot talk like us.

However you are wrong when you say they cannot talk. the latest in scientific knowledge suggests that monkeys, apes, and cetaceans do all have a language, and do communicate. maybe not talking as we would, but certainly communicating in an individual way (monkeys and apes more reliant on gestures to aid the language), with cetaceans even being able to talk so similarly, with individual accents currently being shown by certain pods.

Answer 9

They are smart enough to understand language and words. Some have been taught other means of "speaking." Many animals can that are of lesser intellect. Such as cats and more so in both ways...dogs.
The real problem is the development of the vocal cords, and not so much, the brain. Its like saying why cant elephants play piano. They just dont have the fingers.

Answer 10

Talk?i.e. with verbal skills????? no, since they lack the necessary throat equipment, as do all the other great apes....... But they do indeed communicate, can be taught language, and understand syntax and grammar.

Google a critter called Washoe+ American Sign Language (sp)...... a chimp in Nevada eons ago. It was taught American Sign Language. The National Geographic ran it about 20 years ago... the questions was give, "What would you do if I died?" (asked of the chimp from the person who was its major caregiver.) That sentence, notice, is in future perfect tense. The chimp answered, in American Sign Language, "I would be very sad." (also in future perfect tense). The experiment continued in various zoos and other chimps as well as gorillas have been taught ASL, and those have taught others.

Answer 11

First of all evolution is a "THEORY" so nothing has been proven, They can't talk cause God made them that way, we didn't come from monkey's its just a lie, satans trick. If we did than why are there still monkeys? they just woke up one day and said i think i'll stop being humans, no. It's all fake God is real and so is his word (bible). Find yourself a nice christian bible preaching church, that actually preach on sin and other things. Not those mega churches that teach what the people want to hear and they just all about the money.