Arboreal origin of consonants and thus, ultimately, speech

摘要

? 2022 The AuthorThe world's spoken languages are universally composed of vowels and consonants, but the primate prototypical call repertoire is almost exclusively composed of vowel-like calls. What was the origin of consonant-like calls? Their prevalence across great apes suggests that an arboreal lifestyle and extractive foraging were ecological preconditions for speech evolution.