Translated using Google Translate.

In human language, Menzerath law says that the bigger is the whole, the lower parts. For example, longer words tend to be formed by shorter and longer syllable phrases tend to be composed of shorter words. The law is called Paul Menzerath, a Slovak linguist whose ideas have been the seed for decades of research in quantitative linguistics.

Although this law is fulfilled in the vast majority of human languages, so far it had not proved its existence in any other animal species. An international team of scientists, with the participation of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), has verified the law in geladas (gelada), a kind of Ethiopian primate in which males produce long sequences of up to 25 formed calls for six different types.

The study, now published in the journal PNAS, reveals similarities between the communication system of the human geladas. According to researchers, the long and complex vocal sequences geladas follow a pattern observed in many human languages: the longer the sequence together, shorter are the sounds that form.

To reach these conclusions, the scientists, led by Morgan Gustison of the University of Michigan (USA) and Stuart Semple at the University of Roehampton (UK) analyzed 1,065 4,747 vocal sequences individuales- --most of recorded calls from 57 males Sankaber area of ​​National Park Simien Mountains in Ethiopia.

Read the full article (Google translated) "The 'phrases' the apes and humans follow the same rules" at SiNC.