nivek
As Above So Below
Just outside of Yongin, South Korea, is the Everland Zoo, and here resides an Asian elephant with a very special ability indeed.
Starting in 2004, Koshik the elephant suddenly began to startle zoo workers by perfectly mimicking words and expressions in the Korean language, such as “Hello,”(annyong) “Sit down,”(anja) “Lie down,”(nuo), “Good,”(choak) and “No” (aniya).
The elephant was apparently able to nearly perfectly reproduce these words, which was both unsettling and extraordinary, as elephants do not have a vocal tract like humans, nor lips with which to enunciate the words, and more importantly none had ever shown the inclination to even try, making this sort of human speech mimicry from an elephant totally unprecedented.
Koshik got around these anatomical challenges by placing the tip of his trunk into his mouth and manually altering his voice tract to produce the unusual sounds, a method which an international group of elephant researchers studying Koshik since 2010 have deemed to be a “wholly novel method of vocal production.”
The elephant even has managed to recreate a pitch, frequency, and timber which are the same as the voices of his trainers, suggesting that he spontaneously learned to emulate human speech through close contact with them his entire life.
However, as amazing and unique as Koshik’s talking is, there is little evidence that he actually understands what he is saying, and it appears he is merely reproducing the words, perhaps in an effort to impress, please, or otherwise bond with the humans around him, although no one really knows the true reason.
Koshik has attracted great interest from researchers due to this remarkable ability.
Koshik the Talking Elephant
Starting in 2004, Koshik the elephant suddenly began to startle zoo workers by perfectly mimicking words and expressions in the Korean language, such as “Hello,”(annyong) “Sit down,”(anja) “Lie down,”(nuo), “Good,”(choak) and “No” (aniya).
The elephant was apparently able to nearly perfectly reproduce these words, which was both unsettling and extraordinary, as elephants do not have a vocal tract like humans, nor lips with which to enunciate the words, and more importantly none had ever shown the inclination to even try, making this sort of human speech mimicry from an elephant totally unprecedented.
Koshik got around these anatomical challenges by placing the tip of his trunk into his mouth and manually altering his voice tract to produce the unusual sounds, a method which an international group of elephant researchers studying Koshik since 2010 have deemed to be a “wholly novel method of vocal production.”
The elephant even has managed to recreate a pitch, frequency, and timber which are the same as the voices of his trainers, suggesting that he spontaneously learned to emulate human speech through close contact with them his entire life.
However, as amazing and unique as Koshik’s talking is, there is little evidence that he actually understands what he is saying, and it appears he is merely reproducing the words, perhaps in an effort to impress, please, or otherwise bond with the humans around him, although no one really knows the true reason.
Koshik has attracted great interest from researchers due to this remarkable ability.
Koshik the Talking Elephant
E5gU2c