Orangutan mimics human speach

[Catherine]

This is really interesting. An orangutan female in a German zoo mimics human speech. That means she is capable of making the sounds that we do. That is how speech starts.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/01/18/...man-speech

Tilda can make the sounds, but can she actually use the sounds as words. That might come. If not her, then maybe some other Orangutan is going to become capable of speech.
This changes a lot as far as Orangutan rights are concerned.
I am excited to see what the future will hold.

[Tobi]

This is extremely interesting. I would have liked to see a video. But it seemed that on the page, it was a picture of Tilda, not a video.
Something in me says I am not the slightest bit surprised though. Animals (in my opinion) are not 'lower' than us at all. I think there are parallel evolutions going on besides ours. In my opinion we humans are not 'at the top' of anything, but share in a brotherhood/sisterhood with other species who have different talents and abilities to ours.

I like the 2 comments.

[Catherine]

This should let you see the video.




It is a very short video so we do not see much, but the fact that she uses her mouth to make the sounds the way a human would means she could speak.

People have always seen our hands and our speech as setting us apart from animals. (I don't think we are apart) Many animals have working hands. Now there is an animal using human like vocalizations.

Quote: I think there are parallel evolutions going on besides ours. In my opinion we humans are not 'at the top' of anything, but share in a brotherhood/sisterhood with other species who have different talents and abilities to ours.

This may be the point. Orangutans are cousins in the same family tree. They have continued to evolve too. We just don't know how far they are going to go.

Whales and dolphins are highly evolved and seem to have their own language. The world is not quite the way most people thought it was.

This is a bit like discovering that the earth revolves around the sun instead of the whole universe revolving around the earth.

This article makes some good points and has the video.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/01/...man-speech
It may be years before this is fully studied, but I think it is significant.