Names are universal throughout human culture and across different language . They form a huge part of our individuality and help us pass along with each other , but personalnamesare considered a unambiguously human thing . Now , new inquiry has suggested that wildAfrican elephantscould call each other with individual specific calls – the equivalent of a name – with captivating implication for the evolution of language .

The Modern enquiry , which has been stake as a preprint and has not yet been demonstrate by peer review , analyzed calls from savage elephant in two area of Kenya : the greater Samburu ecosystem to the north , and the Amboseli National Park to the south .

The final dataset contained 625 disjoined song , 597 of which occur between members of the same category group . There were 114 unique callers and 119 unique receivers . The researchers only include call direct at a individual individual elephant , and for which the pass receiver could be discover .

The team measure the acoustical features of the elephant sounds and ran a series of statistical tests on the data , to see if it was potential to foretell the identity of the receiver from the call . And indeed , this was see to be the case , as the squad writes : “ [ R]eceivers of calls could be aright place from call social organization statistically importantly better than probability . ”

One vista the squad were peculiarly interested in was whether the call mimicked the receiver ’s own vocalizations . This has been observed inother metal money , such asdolphins , which can learn each other ’s single outspoken labels and respond to their own label when they learn it .

What was enthralling about the elephant data , though , was that the authors found limited evidence that the caller-out were imitating each receiver ’s own call . “ To our noesis , this study presents the first grounds for vocal addressing of conspecifics without imitation of the pass receiver ’s calls in nonhuman animals , ” they write .

The author also took 17 of the elephants and played them recordings of vociferation that were in the beginning addressed to them to see how they react . “ Further supporting the beingness of vocal label , ” the writer write , “ subject approached the speaker more quickly [ … ] and vocalized more quickly [ … ] in answer to test playbacks than control condition playback . ”

Overall , the authors concluded that this could well be the first grounds of a non - human species using a human - like naming organisation to have-to doe with to other individual . As to why this might arise in elephants specifically , there are some clues we can glean from their societal structures .

“ Due to their nuclear fission - fusion social dynamics , elephants are often out of sight of their close stick to societal partners and produce contact grumbling to intercommunicate over long distances , ” the authors explain , referring to elephants ’ inclination tosplit themselves up into smaller partiesthat can then combine together to form large groups , sometimes hundreds - strong .

“ outspoken labels could heighten coordinating ability while out of sight of one another , ” the author continue , also noting that the labels only cropped up in a nonage of vocalizations , likely because in many setting there is no need to apply them .

There ’s also a cuddlier aspect to all this : calling each other by their names could be a path of enhancingsocial soldering , the authors posit , as is the case with humans .

As a preprint study , it ’s important to think of that this enquiry is yet to be subject to match review . However , the author do note that the “ findings invoke challenging doubtfulness about the complexity of elephant social cognition , ” and thus open up up a fascinating new avenue for researchers to explore .

The preprint has been posted tobioRxiv .