How do the world’s only flying mammals(哺乳动物) communicate? Researchers have observed young bats adopting new “dialects” simply by hearing them repeatedly, making them one of the few animals known to be capable of voice learning. “These bats may help us clarify the development of speech learning skills,” says Yosef Prat, a PhD at Tel AvivUniversity.

For one year, researchers raised 14 Egyptian fruit baby bats with their mothers in controlled area, surrounding each young bat with two different voices: the natural call of its mother and a distinct recording that varied in loudness or tone. They found that the baby bats in each group developed a dialect like the recording. “The general assumption in this field is that most animals develop their born voices in despite of what they hear, and that human voice learning abilities have developed as time goes by,” says Mr. Prat. “The finding that bats learn the common dialect in their rest place was unusual. ”

Scientists know little about the origin of spoken language, which is believed to have appeared in humans within the past 500,000 years. A diversity of theories attempts to give a detailed clarification of this skill, but none have done so conclusively.

“Studying voice communication and voice learning in animal models is a very useful way to approach the problem,” says Olga Feher, an assistant professor at the University of Warwick in England.

But animal voice s and human speech are very different things, says Jamin Pelkey, a professor at Ryerson University. “All species communicate. Unlike other animals, though, human beings are able to use sound patterns for functions that are far stranger—functions that are imaginative, theoretical, and critical. When speech is involved in these stranger functions, that is what we mean by spoken ‘language’. ‘‘

【小题1】How do young bats pick up their “language” according to the research?

A．By hearing it constantly.	B．By interacting with partners.
C．By learning from researchers.	D．By repeating it with their mothers.

【小题2】Why does Mr. Prat think the findings unusual?

A．It is distinct from the general assumption.

B．It helps people understand human voice leaning.

C．It proves animals only develop their inborn voices.

D．It makes the previous assumption more convincing.

【小题3】What does the underlined word “problem” in Paragraph 4 refer to?

A．Illustrating the origin of animal voices.

B．Giving a full account of spoken language.

C．Helping animals develop their born voices.

D．Telling the differences between animal voices and human speech.

【小题4】What does professor Pelkey think of researching young bats?

A．It is not so relevant to understanding human speech.

B．It promotes people to use imaginative sound patterns.

C．It is essential for analyzing animal voice learning skills.

D．It helps people explore more functions of spoken language.