Monkeys Detect Bad Grammar
July 12, 2009 by Peggy Rowland
Filed under Pets
In other animal news outside the pet world, it’s been discovered that monkeys can pick up on bad grammar!
Harvard researchers reporting in the journal Biology Letters noted that cotton-top tamarins have some interesting skills we might not suspect.
They can recognize if the order of syllables in a word is incorrect: ed-jumped instead of jumped. Researchers believe this shows that our human language uses memory processes that aren’t specific to language.
You can read more about the study specifics at BBC: Monkeys recognise ‘bad grammar’.
Cotton-top tamarins are small monkeys that weigh less than one pound. When they get alarmed, the hair on their head stands up to make them look bigger. Reminds me of an alarmed cat’s tail!
Sadly, the cotton-top tamarin is one of the most endangered primates in the world. Read more about the fight to keep them thriving at Wildlife Conservation Network.
(Image via flickr suneko)
