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For ages, humans have clung to the idea that our ability to combine words into meaningful phrases—a core part of language—was a skill exclusive to us. But it turns out, our cousins in the animal kingdom may be flexing some serious linguistic muscles of their own. A new study reveals that bonobos, those ultra-social and surprisingly gentle great apes, are out here mixing and matching vocal sounds in ways that look a lot like the building blocks of human speech.
Bonobos don’t just talk—they compose
Researchers working in the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo used a fresh approach borrowed straight from human linguistics to crack the code on bonobo talk. What they found? Bonobos aren’t just making random noises. They’re creating sound combos that have meaning—and not just any meaning, but compositional meaning. That’s a big deal.
Compositionality is the backbone of human language. It’s what lets us put words like “lazy dog” or “angry boss” together and get a new, specific idea. In this sense, each part of the phrase builds on the other to shape a clearer picture. Think of it like ingredients in a recipe—combine flour and sugar, and now you’ve got the base of a cake, not just two random pantry items.
But bonobos are doing something very similar. After decoding individual bonobo calls (basically making a bonobo sound dictionary—yes, really), researchers realized these apes were pairing up sounds in purposeful ways. For example, a call that might mean “food” combined with a call that means “come here” shifts the message to something more like “come get food.”
“This allowed us to create a bonobo dictionary of sorts – a complete list of bonobo calls and their meaning,” said Mélissa Berthet, a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology of UZH and lead researcher of the study.
“This represents an important step towards understanding the communication of other species, as it is the first time that we have determined the meaning of calls across the whole vocal repertoire of an animal.”
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It’s not just baby talk—it’s ape syntax
Now, let’s be clear. This isn’t bonobos speaking in full-blown grammar like Shakespearean apes. But the combinations they use mimic a kind of nontrivial compositionality, which is a fancy way of saying: the way sounds are paired changes the overall meaning, just like in human phrases.
Case in point: saying “bad dancer” in English doesn’t just tell you someone is bad and they also dance—it tells you they’re not great at dancing. That little shift in meaning is subtle, but powerful. Bonobos seem to be playing with this same kind of nuance in their vocal combos.
“With our approach, we were able to quantify how the meaning of bonobo single calls and call combinations relate to each other,” says Simon Townsend, UZH Professor and senior author of the study.
And this has implications far beyond the forest. “This suggests that the capacity to combine call types in complex ways is not as unique to humans as we once thought,” says Mélissa Berthet.
What does this mean for the story of language?
The biggest plot twist? This all points to the idea that some core features of language—like compositionality—are way older than we thought. Bonobos and humans last shared a common ancestor somewhere between 7 and 13 million years ago. If these apes are showing signs of compositionality, it likely means our ancestors were already playing with complex vocal structures long before modern language existed.
“Since humans and bonobos had a common ancestor approximately 7 to 13 million years ago, they share many traits by descent, and it appears that compositionality is likely one of them,” says Harvard Professor Martin Surbeck, co-author of the study.
“Our study suggests that our ancestors already extensively used compositionality at least 7 million years ago, if not more,” concluded Simon Townsend.
Let that sink in: the foundations of grammar could predate the invention of fire.
Want to spot animal language in real life? Here’s how
While you’re not likely to bump into a wild bonobo on your next Target run, animal communication is all around us. Here are a few fun ways to tune into it:
- Watch your dog’s bark patterns. A short, sharp bark often means excitement or alert, but combine it with a whine and you’ve got “I see the mailman and I want to chase him and I’m sad you won’t let me.”
- Birdsong isn’t just music. Many birds use combinations of chirps to signal danger, food, or even just “back off, this tree is mine.”
- Dolphins use name-like whistles. Some studies show they have unique signature sounds—basically calling out to each other like, “Hey, Steve!”
Bottom line? We’re not the only chatterboxes in the animal kingdom
So, next time you think about what makes humans special, remember this: the roots of our ability to speak in complex, meaningful ways might be shared with our primate cousins. We didn’t invent the idea of combining words—we just gave it an upgrade.
Turns out, bonobos have been speaking volumes. We just weren’t listening.
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