Neanderthal man speaks after 30,000 years

CNN) -- It's been 30,000 years since Neanderthals walked the earth, but now we can hear what they sounded like, according to a Florida anthropologist.

Neanderthal man apparently sounded like a frog croaking or a human burping when talking.

Robert McCarthy of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton reconstructed Neanderthal vocal tracts to simulate their voice with a computer synthesizer.


The result is a single syllable that sounds strange and unremarkable: part croaking frog, part burping human. But McCarthy says that's because Neanderthals lacked the "quantal vowels" modern humans use.

Listen to Neanderthal man speak

CNN 16/04/08