The fascinating thing about language
Just when you thought you'd run out of surfable trivia, Lingo24's multifarious mélange of language-related news, anecdotes and suspect humour is back again. This month's simian-themed selection should keep you going for a while...
Monkeying around
A new study by the University of Saint-Andrews reveals that a type of African monkey can mix two calls into a certain sequence to broadcast other types of information. These findings, reported in the May 18th issue of the journal 'Nature', indicate that non-human primates can combine calls into higher-order sequences that have a particular meaning.
Researchers at the Scottish university tracked a group of putty-nosed monkeys for two months. The putty-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans), lives up in the trees in African rainforests. Its three main objectives in life are to reproduce, eat, and not get eaten. The researchers recorded the lead male's calls, and found out that a loud 'pyow' call meant that a hungry leopard was hanging around, whereas a 'hack' meant there was a peckish eagle flying about. The ground-breaking discovery came when they noticed that the males sometimes let out a combination of 'pyow-hacks,' which on average gets the monkey pack moving a little quicker and further than either call on its own. When the male wants to up sticks, he produces this two-call sequence, which is followed by the group moving on.
"The visibility in rainforests is terrible - maybe 10 metres - which is why these acoustic signals are so crucial," explains study co-author Klaus Zuberbuhler.
Next month we focus on a company that is developing translation memory software for apes. No, not really...
Monkey-drying
Our attempts at trying out a bit of the local lingo in foreign countries, while often appreciated by the inhabitants, doesn't always go as planned, as can be seen from this 'holiday blunders' feature on the BBC Languages website: www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/200505/437.shtml
Malcolm's example made us chuckle: "The French for monkey is 'un singe', the French for laundry is 'le linge' and tumble dryer is 'un sèche-linge'. Maybe you're ahead of me already! I had an architect in my kitchen in France. I just had the word 'singe' stuck in my head and I wanted to say to him: 'This is where we are going to put the tumble dryer', but it came out as 'C'est ici qu'on va mettre le sèche-singe', or 'This is where we are going to put the monkey dryer'. The architect tried to keep a straight face but couldn't stop himself and then I realised what I'd said. You can imagine what an idiot I felt."
Don't worry, Malcom - it'll all come out in the wash.
Monkey business
The Italian Mafia is looking for a new man to make weekly collections from all the private businesses that they're 'protecting'. Feeling the heat from the police, they decide to use a monkey for this job, as if he were to get caught, he wouldn't be able to communicate to the police what he was doing.
Well, on his first week, the monkey picks up over €50,000. Thinking of all the bananas he could buy, he gets greedy, decides to keep the money and stashes it in a safe place. The Mafia soon realizes that their collection is late, and sends some of their hoods after the monkey.
They find the monkey and ask him where the money is. The monkey can't communicate with them, so the Mafia drags him to a zoologist specialising in ape communication (Editor's note:at Saint-Andrews Uni?). The Mafia hood says to the zoologist, "Ask him where the money is." The zoologist-cum-interpreter signs, "Where's the money?" The monkey replies, "I don't know what you're talking about." The interpreter tells the hood, "He says he doesn't know what you're talking about." The hood pulls out a gun and places it in the monkey's ear. "Now ask him where the money is!" The monkey expert signs, "Where is the money?" The monkey replies, "The €50,000 is in a waterproof bag in a fountain in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome." The zoologist says to the hood, "He says he still doesn't know what you're talking about, and doesn't think you have the guts to pull the trigger."