Human speech mimicked by Asian elephant

An Asian elephant is able to imitate human speech and has five Korean words in his vocabulary.

The elephant, named Koshik, is able to say annyong (hello), anja (sit down), aniya (no), nuo (lie down) and choah (good).

Tecumseh Fitch, a professor of cognitive biology at the University of Vienna, co-authored a study on Koshik, says he has every reason to believe the elephant knows the meanings of the words, since he has learnt them from his trainers' commands.

The study involved computer analysis to study the structure of the sounds and asking five native Korean speakers to write down what they heard when listening to playbacks of the elephant, and found that the listeners had no trouble understanding the elephant's words.

Co-author Angela Stoeger-Horwath said: "He vocalises with his trunk in his mouth, obviously modulating his vocal tract to match the characteristics of human speech.

"He accurately imitates human formants as well as the voice of his trainers. This is remarkable considering the huge size, the long vocal tract, and other anatomical differences between an elephant and a human."

It is thought that Koshik is using the words as a way of bonding with humans.