Orangutans can make two sounds at the same time, similar to human beatboxing, according to a study

June 27 () –

Orangutans can simultaneously make two different soundsjust like songbirds or human beatboxers, according to a study led by the University of Warwick (United Kingdom) and published in the journal ‘PNAS Nexus’.

The academics say the findings provide clues about the evolution of human speech, as well as human beatboxing..

The scientists observed two populations of vocalizing orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra for a total of 3,800 hours and found that primates in both groups used the same vocal phenomenon.

Dr Adriano Lameira, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Warwick, explains that “Humans use the lips, tongue and jaw to make the non-voiced sounds of consonants, while we activate the vocal cords of the larynx with the exhaled air to emit the voiced and open sounds of the vowels”.

As he indicates, “orangutans are also capable of producing both types of sounds, and both at the same time. By For example, the large male Bornean orangutans produce noises known as “chomps” in combination with “grunts” in combat situations. Sumatran orangutan females produce “kissing squeals” at the same time as “rolling calls” to alert others to a possible threat from a predator,” she explains.

“The fact that two different populations of orangutans have been observed making two calls simultaneously is proof that it is a biological phenomenon.“, Add.

Co-author and independent researcher Madeleine Hardus adds, “Humans rarely produce voiced and nonvoiced noises simultaneously. The exception is beatboxing, a skillful vocal performance that imitates the complex rhythms of hip hop music.”

“But the mere fact that humans are anatomically capable of beatboxing raises questions about the origin of this ability,” he continues. “We now know that the answer could lie in the evolution of our ancestors.”

According to the authors, the vocal coordination and control abilities of wild great apes have been underestimated compared to the attention paid to the vocal abilities of birds.

“Producing two sounds, exactly as birds sing, resembles spoken language, but bird anatomy is unlike ours, so it’s hard to make links between bird song and human spoken language.adds Dr. Hardus.

The new research has implications for the vocal abilities of our common ancestors and for the evolution of human speech, as well as for human beatboxing. “Now that we know that this vocal ability is part of the repertoire of great apes, we cannot ignore the evolutionary links,” Lameira stresses.

“It is possible that early human language was more like beatboxing, before evolution organized language into the consonant-vowel structure we know today,” he concludes.