Meanings
- alternativeuncountableAlternative form of monkeyspeak.
Monkey-speak may give scientists clues to early human language / ■ Scientists at the Yerkes Primate Institute are studying the dialects of monkey families to gain an understanding about the birth of human language
1992 November 17, The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., page 9B, column 23 more examples
About a dozen guys showed up for a performance by comedian Tim Allen at the Kentucky Center for the Arts last night wearing yellow hard hats, some proudly carrying tape measures and other tools. Their entrance sparked laughter, applause and lots of Allen’s trademark “ooo-ooo” monkey-speak from the sold-out crowd.
1992 June 7, Mark Clark, “Comedy Review: Tim Allen”, in The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky., page A 13, column 1In the field, researchers play tape recordings of vervet monkey cries to see how these affect real monkeys. […] And when the scientists play a cry that is monkey-speak for “Look out! Eagle!”, the real-life monkeys hide in a bush where the eagle can’t reach them.
1997 April 13, Keay Davidson, “Animals chatting amongst themselves?”, in San Francisco Examiner, 132nd year, number 15, San Francisco, Calif., page C-5, columns 3–4A band of pigtailed macaques, maybe 30, sat together on the shore, peering through wind-driven rain, bopping one another on the back and head, pointing toward the Andaman Sea and cackling, in monkey-speak, “Do you believe those people?”
2002 September 8, Jonathan Storm, “On ‘Survivor’ isle, no paradise”, in The Philadelphia Inquirer, 174th year, number 100, Philadelphia, Pa., page H1, columns 1–2
Cite this entry
monkey-speak. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/monkey-speak
“monkey-speak.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/monkey-speak. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “monkey-speak,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/monkey-speak.
Source: monkey-speak on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.