Talking animal

A talking animal or speaking animal is any non-human animal that can produce sounds or gestures resembling those of a human language. Several species or groups of animals have developed forms of communication which superficially resemble verbal language, however, these usually are not considered a language because they lack one or more of the defining characteristics, e.g. grammar, syntax, recursion, and displacement. Researchers have been successful in teaching some animals to make gestures similar to sign language, although whether this should be considered a language has been disputed. The term refers to animals who can imitate (though not necessarily understand) human speech. Parrots, for example, repeat phrases of human speech through exposure. There were parrots that learnt to use words in proper context and had meaningful dialogues with humans. Alex, a grey parrot, understood questions about color, shape, size, number etc. of objects and would provide a one-word answer to them. He is also documented to have asked an existential question. Another grey parrot, N'kisi, could use 950 words in proper context, was able to form sentences and even understood the concept of grammatical tense. Researchers have attempted to teach great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) spoken language with poor results as they can only be taught how to say one or a few basic or limited words or phrases or less, and sign language with significantly better results as they can be very creative with various signs like those of deaf people. In this regard, there are now numerous studies and an extensive bibliography. Bird vocalisation and Talking bird Alex, a grey parrot researched and trained by Dr. Irene Pepperberg, demonstrated knowledge of cca. 100 words, understood the meaning of several types of questions and was documented to ask one question about himself. N'kisi, a grey parrot, knows over 900 words, can form sentences and even understands grammatical tense.