http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1253...s-not-mums.html

Monkeys use 'baby talk' to sooth infants not mums
11:44 24 August 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi


Female rhesus macaques seem to use "baby talk" to get the attention of another monkey's infant

Baby talk

Female rhesus monkeys attract other mothers' newborns with a form of "baby talk" that serves a similar function to the high-pitched babbling sounds humans make around babies, a study suggests.

Some non-human primates, such as rhesus macaques and squirrel monkeys, make unusual sounds, particularly grunts and nasal whines known as "girneys", in the presence of infants of their own species. In 1989, a group of researchers from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Maryland, US, found evidence that squirrel monkey's use special sounds to interact with their young.

However, in the case of macaques, experts have previously speculated that these sounds may be meant to reassure a baby's mother that the infant will not be harmed. This is because female rhesus macaques are often aggressive and careless around infants that do not belong to them, and because the animals rarely make the sounds around their own young...