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The Elephant That Speaks Korean
An Asian elephant has astonished his keepers by learning to imitate at least five words in their native tongue including “hello” and “good”.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
Cases of mammals being able to make human-like sounds are extremely rare, because even close animal relatives like chimpanzees do not have enough vocal control to match our pitch and tone.
But Koshik overcame sizeable anatomical hurdles – the fact that elephants have no lips, for instance – to mimic human sounds by placing his trunk in his mouth and massaging his vocal tract into a different shape.
The unusual technique, which has never before been seen in animals, allows him to imitate human word sounds and match the pitch of his trainers’ voices despite being much larger, and having a longer vocal tract and bigger larynx.
A study by researchers from the University of Vienna established that Koshik, who lives at Everland Zoo in South Korea, could mimic five words: “annyong” (“hello”), “anja” (“sit down”), “aniya” (“no”), “nuo” (“lie down”), and “choah” (“good”).
Sixteen native Korean speakers were asked to listen to 47 recordings of the elephant “speaking” and spell out what they believed they had heard.
