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Story Posted: 29 January 2010

Just like humans, monkeys like to keep it brief when it comes to communication, according to a new study. 

In human language, more frequently used words tend to be shorter in length – a phenomenon known as the "law of brevity". Now researchers have found that the vocal communication of another primate species – the Formosan macaque of Taiwan – also obeys this law. This highlights intriguing new similarities between our own communication and that of our monkey cousins.

Dr Stuart Semple and his colleagues describe this discovery in a paper in the Royal Society journal, Biology Letters. The Formosan macaque that they studied has a vocabulary of 35 different calls. The researchers found that the everyday chatter consisted of the shortest of these calls, while only very rarely did the longest calls get an airing. In monkey chatter, it would seem that short is certainly sweet.

The importance of keeping things brief cannot be underestimated for these monkeys who not only save energy by using shorter calls, but are also less likely to attract the unwanted attention of predators.

The new research adds to a growing number of studies indicating that monkey talk may not be as different from our own language as we might like to think.

Dr Semple said: “This work reveals a fundamental similarity between humans and monkeys in the way information is coded in their vocal communication.”

Dr Semple's work has been a point of discussion across the media, including stories by the BBC, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail.

Photographs are courtesy of Dr Minna Hsu.