A study published in February this year suggested that just like humans, primates in essence also have the ability to develop new accents.

The study, which followed a group of Dutch chimps, suggested that primates are able to adapt their grunts to match those of their neighbors when they move to new places.

Over a three year period, the Dutch chimps were observed to have changed their calls for apple from excited and high pitched calls to less excited and lower pitched grunts matching those of their Scottish chimp neighbors.

The observation has led to researchers suggesting that the group of Dutch chimps learned a new accent from the Scottish group of chimps.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, however, a group of scientists questioned the results of the study. Anthropology professor James Higham, from New York University, said that there are several flaws in the study. He said that some involved methods the researchers used and others were fundamental misrepresentation of data.

Higham and colleagues said that a closer inspection of the study data showed that both groups of chimps largely overlapped in the range of calls they originally use in response to apples.

"It looks like a stretch to me to say that these were two different calls for apples in 2010, and by 2013 the Dutch group had stopped using their original call," Higham said. "What I see is two groups that largely overlapped in the first place, which is interesting in itself and could be about all kinds of things."

The study did not also account for the excitement of the Dutch chimps which may have settled down over time. The scientists pointed out that the higher-pitched calls may have reflected the chimps' excitement at being given apples, their favorite treat, or it may have reflected the animals' anxiety or excitement over their new home and neighbor, both of which could have eventually waned into lower-pitched calls.

 "We are not convinced that the authors controlled for arousal (or at least they did not report such data); furthermore, the vocal characteristics of the two groups largely overlapped already at the beginning of the study," Higham and colleagues wrote.

The scientists said that they also question the claims of the study regarding how it sheds light on the evolutionary history of referential words in humans. 

Photo:   Afrika Force | Flickr