Humans understand many of the gestures wild chimpanzees use to communicate. That's the conclusion of a video study in which volunteers translated monkey gestures.

This was done by researchers at the University of St. Andrews. It is suggested that the last common ancestor we shared with chimpanzees used similar gestures, and they may have been the starting point for our language.

Lead researcher Dr. Kirsty Graham of St. Andrews University explained that this mode of gesture-based communication is also used by other species of great apes, including gorillas and orangutans.