Can animals learn to express themselves using human language?

According to this article from the BBC network an African Grey Parrot "has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour". Is it possible that a parrot can infact have an understanding of language, beyond just repeating like "monkey see, monkey do"?.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

N'kisi's remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine.

N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world.

About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.

Blessings,
Mikromarius

Great Apes and Dolphins can too. I didn't think this was anything new since Coco the Gorilla back in the 1970s.

No animal can rival Humans but some can learn to communicate and show emotion.

Originally posted by ScienceGuyQ
Great Apes and Dolphins can too. I didn't think this was anything new since Coco the Gorilla back in the 1970s.

No animal can rival Humans but some can learn to communicate and show emotion.

Yes, and I've heared about that American Gorilla who paint beautiful pictures and has released a CD with pop songs it has written the lyrics for (allthough pop music isn't ecactly reknown for it's advanced language), but I have never heared of an animal or a bird who has the understanding of kasuses (kasi) and is able to use alternate words to discribe a situation or a phenomenon.

Blessings,
Mikromarius

Is it possible that a parrot can infact have an understanding of language, beyond just repeating like "monkey see, monkey do"?.

Yes, it is definitely possible. I have a quaker parrot whose vocabulary is limited to a few words. He's not one of those African Greys, as pictured, that have an enormous vocabulary. My bird will hear me correcting my dogs, probably for pissing me off, and I'll hear Puff(my parrot) say "Bad" "Bad" "Bad". He can tell by the tone of my voice that someone's in trouble. He knows what 'bad' means and he applies it correctly to certain situations. I can only imagine how a bird with a 950 word vocabulary applies those words to everyday events. Don't underestimate these creatures.

There is finnaly some proof that animals can use teleptahy. This is an amazing bird. I have tried to talk telepathicly with my bird and now I am going to try more.

i wouldn't consider this

"N'kisi's remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine."

any amount of proof that birds can use telepathy. unless youfound this proof somewhere else?

This might be a little off topic but my friends have a parot (not sure what kind). It's the big one that is brilliant blue and green. Anyway one day we were sitting outside and they brought the bird out with us and put him on his perch. He kinda "flew" (really fell since he was clipped) down from the perch. So, my friend goes to put him back on the perch saying "come on lemme put you back up". The bird kept saying "no, no, no, no". It was quite hysterical watching him run after the bird in this manner.

Hehe. Parrots rule. But I feel a little sorry for the ones who are kept in cages forced to sit in loneliness just because some people have decided they find the bird attractive. They should be living in the jungle where they love to be, not in small cages, but I guess they take good care of them afterall, but I don't like it.

As for telepathy and animals understanding language, I am sure my cat can understand what I say at times. Most of the time infact.

Blessings,
Mikromarius

I think that dolphin language research is the most promising. Some of the stuff is amazing. Especially the experiments with a sort of sign language/keyboard for human / dolphin interfacing.

Apparently this bird is psychic as well.

There was a thread on this subject earlier today, which was apparently deleted for some reason. I could not fathom why it would have been deleted. Didn't seem to violate any rules. My only thought was that there was a duplicate thread. A search turned up only this thread.


(Furthermore, that would not make it a duplicate thread in my eyes. The subject of this thread is N'kisi's use of language, not his apparent psychic abilities, which was the topic of the other thread.)


What gives, ATS? Sometimes this place is really frustrating and/or ridiculous.


Video related (and impressive):






Edit: Apparently the search function on this site just sucks really bad. There does seem to be one thread on the topic of a "psychic parrot" (which I had to turn to google to find out. The exact same search performed inside ATS showed only this thread.) However, aside from being 3 posts long and buried years ago, the thread was made in a different sub-forum. And I thought that kind of thing was allowed. Either way, kind of annoying.


Interesting topic, though....