Koshik akipewa mafunzo ya Kikorea.
An Asian
elephant named Koshik can imitate human speech, saying words in Korean that can
be understood by speakers of the language, researchers from the University of
Vienna say.
It is unclear why Koshik started mimicking
human speech but cognitive biologists Angela Stoeger and Tecumseh Fitch suggest
in research published in the journal Current Biology that it might be related
to his experiences as a juvenile.
Koshik was the only elephant living at the
Everland Zoo in South Korea for about five years in his youth, with only people
for company during an important phase for bonding and development.
“We suggest that Koshik started to adapt his
vocalizations to his human companions to strengthen his social affiliation with
them, something that is also seen in other vocal-learning species and in very
special cases, even across species,” said Stoeger.
There have been reports of elephants imitating
the sound of truck engines, and a male elephant living in a zoo in Kazakhstan
has been reported to say words in Russian and Kazakh, but that case was never
investigated by scientists.
Koshik made headlines a few years ago by
attracting tourists with his unusual ability, but the researchers have now run
tests where they asked native Korean speakers to write down what they heard
when listening to recordings of the elephant.
They found that by sticking his trunk in his
mouth to help form the sounds, he has a vocabulary of the five Korean words for
‘hello’, ‘sit down’, ‘no’, ‘lie down’ and ‘good’.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that
Koshik understands the meaning of the words he is using.
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