It used to be thought that apes could only make noises that were tied to their emotions such as barks of alarm or hoots of excitement. But this strange peeping sound recorded from wild bonobos appears to have more in common with the calls of human babies.

过去人们认为，猿类只能发出与其情绪相关的声音，例如惊恐的吠叫或兴奋的叫声。但这种从野生倭黑猩猩身上记录下来的奇怪的窥视声似乎与人类婴儿的叫声更相似。

At just three or four months of age, we humans let out growls or squeals that sound the same whether we are happy or distressed. It's up to our parents to figure out what we mean from the context.

在只有三四个月大的时候，我们人类发出的咆哮或尖叫声听起来是一样的，无论我们是快乐还是痛苦。这取决于我们的父母从上下文中弄清楚我们的意思。

The researchers say it's the same with these bonobos peeps. An identical sound is made in happy or in neutral contexts. So instead of being unique to humans, these flexible calls apparently date back at least six million years to our common ancestor with bonobos and chimpanzees. Dr Zanna Clay from the University of Birmingham said her key observation was that the bonobos separated the sound they were making from how they were feeling.

研究人员表示，这些倭黑猩猩的情况也是如此。在快乐或中性的环境中发出相同的声音。因此，这些灵活的叫声并非人类所独有，显然可以追溯到至少六百万年前我们与倭黑猩猩和黑猩猩的共同祖先。伯明翰大学的 Zanna Clay 博士说，她的主要观察是倭黑猩猩将它们发出的声音与它们的感受区分开来。

It seems that the flexibility of our own squawks and grunts joins the growing list of abilities that we humans can no longer count as uniquely ours.

似乎我们自己的尖叫声和咕噜声的灵活性加入了越来越多的能力列表，我们人类不能再将这些能力视为我们独有的。

词汇表

barks 吼叫 
hoots 叫喊
growls 低声的吼叫
squeals 长而尖的叫声
distressed 烦恼的，痛苦的
figure out 弄明白 
context 环境，背景
common ancestor 共同的祖先
squawks （人）大声抱怨、喊叫
grunts （人因为不满或烦恼发出的）嘟哝，哼声