What would a Neanderthal sound like? Well, maybe now we know…
Today, I came across a report in New Scientist called “Neanderthals Speak Out After 30,000 years“. Based on a talk called “Voices out of the past: synthesizing Neanderthal speech” given by Robert McCarthy on research done by himself and F. Yates, P. Lieberman at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting this year. As I understand it from reading the talk’s abstract and the article in New Scientist, the vocal tract doesn’t fossilize so researchers have to guess how the tract would work and fit together. There’s been some work previously. These scientists, as most do, built on the work that came before and then correcting what they perceived as errors in measurements, moved on to synthesize the speech of a Neanderthal. Of course they only did one vowel “E” and hope to later try their theories and equipment on longer words and sentences.
To hear the synthesized speech go here. For comparison listen to the sounds of a modern speaker, here.
As you can hear there is a difference in the sound of the letter E. The paper says that Neanderthals were unable to produce quantal speech or sounds that smooth over errors in articulation. Neanderthals, I believe, must have been very precise speakers or they wouldn’t have been understood by their listeners. Wonder what that did for those with a speech impediment. Hmmm. Of course this is my conjecture not theirs on the non-quantal speech sounds.
What I find curious is that with more study the Neanderthals have rapidly acquired skills, speech, and moved up from the brutish existence that they were thought to have lived when I first heard of them in my childhood whilst trying to find books on dinosaurs and early human (this was pre- all those Clan of the Cave Bear type books, and I wouldn’t have been allowed those at that age anyway.)
The photo of the Neanderthal Child is based on anthropological reconstruction based on the same methods that help police find out what the murder suspect looked like when all they find is “ick” and bones. I think the child looks very modern and a bit like one of the Gelflings in the movie The Dark Crystal. In looking around for any reference to the photo or the Neanderthal speech thing, I found a blog that also recognized the similarities to Gelflings. You really got to love those special effects artists — I’m sure they weren’t trying for Neanderthals but it looks like they got close anyway.
What is the most amazing thing is that we can listen to the speech of a person who has long since passed out of existence and yet, with scientific theory, mathematical modeling, and some educated guess work, we get a piece of our past now…talking to us. It’s amazingly, amazing. I LOVE science.