Chimps talk to each other like passionate Italians: study

Chimpanzees use a mixture of passionate gestures, vocalisations and even sign language to get their points across with each other and with humans, a new study has found.

Chimpanzees use a mixture of passionate gestures, vocalisations and even sign language to get their points across with each other and with humans, a new study has found.

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"Like a passionate Italian uses a combination of hand movements and sounds, the chimpanzees often succeed in conveying what's on their minds, which - in the case of chimps - is often food, playtime and an annoyance over being ignored, similarly," Discovery News reported. The gestures frequently happen in sequences, according to the study.

Author Mary Lee Abshire Jensvold explained how one of the studied chimps, a male named Dar, playfully forced another male, Loulis, to pay attention. "Dar first slapped Loulis. Loulis didn't respond. Dar then used a different gesture, the foot stomp, an auditory gesture. Loulis responded to that gesture. This shows a persistence in communication," she said. Jensvold, an associate director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, and her colleagues Maureen McCarthy and Deborah Fouts studied these two chimps along with three females at the institute.