To the untrained ear, monkeys of a certain species may all sound
the same, but Japanese researchers have found that, like human
beings, they actually have an accent depending on where they
live. The finding, the first of its kind, will appear in the
December edition of a German scientific journal, Ethology, to be
published on December 5, the primate researchers said on
Tuesday. “Differences between chattering by monkeys are like
dialects of human beings,” said Nobuo Masataka, professor of
ethology at Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute. The
research team analysed voice tones of two groups of the same
species of primates, the Japanese Yakushima macaque—also known
as Macaca fuscata yakui—between 1990 and 2000. One group was
formed by 23 monkeys living on the southern Japanese island of
Yakushima, and the other group comprised 30 descendants from the
same tribe moved from the island to Mount Ohira, central Japan,
in 1956. The result showed that the island group had a tone
about 110 hertz higher on aver