SEOUL, South Korea — An elephant in a South Korean zoo is using his trunk to pick up not only food, but also human vocabulary.
An international team of scientists confirmed Friday what the Everland Zoo has been saying for years: Their 51/2-ton tusker Koshik has an unusual and possibly unprecedented talent.
The 22-year-old Asian elephant can reproduce five Korean words by tucking his trunk inside his mouth to modulate sound, the scientists said in a joint paper published online in Current Biology. They said he may have started imitating human speech because he was lonely.
Koshik can reproduce annyeong (hello), anja (sit down), aniya (no), nuwo (lie down) and joa (good), the paper says.
One of the researchers said there is no conclusive evidence that Koshik understands the sounds he makes, although the elephant does respond to words such as anja.
Researchers said the clearest scientific evidence that Koshik is deliberately imitating human speech is that the sound frequency of his words matches his trainers’.
Vocal imitation of other species has been found in mockingbirds, parrots and mynas. But the paper says Koshik’s case represents “a wholly novel method of vocal production” because he uses his trunk to reproduce human speech.
Researchers think Koshik learned to reproduce words out of a desire to bond with his trainers after he was separated from two other elephants at age 5.
Koshik emerged as a star in South Korea after Everland Zoo claimed in 2006 that he could imitate words, two years after his trainers noticed the phenomenon.
Shin Nam-sik, a veterinary professor at Seoul National University, agreed with researchers’ finding that the elephant was able to mimic human speech.
“In Koshik’s case, the level of intimacy between him and his trainer was the key factor,” Shin said.
Kim Jong-gab, Koshik’s chief trainer, said the elephant was timid for a male when he first came to Everland Zoo, so trainers often slept in the same area with him. Kim thinks that contact helped Koshik feel closer to humans.
Kim said he has another phrase he wants to teach Koshik: Saranghae (I love you).