Humans are adept combiners. As it turns out, so, too, are bonobos. According to a new study in Science, bonobos can combine their calls a lot like humans can, indicating that a hallmark of human communication — an ability called compositionality — is just as much a hallmark of the communication of our closest relatives.
“Since humans and bonobos had a common ancestor approximately 7 to 13 million years ago, they share many traits by descent,” said Martin Surbeck, a study author and an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, according to a press release. “It appears that compositionality is likely one of them.”
Read More: Chimps, Like Humans, are Fast Talkers — With Their Hands
When we humans communicate, we combine our words into sequences, some more complicated than others. In some cases, these sequences are as meaningful as their individual words, a type of structure called trivial compositionality. In ...
