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Polly want a cracker?
Posted: January 7, 2007, 5:40 am
by Keverian FireCry
Amongst the chaos of the world, I really enjoyed this story of a parrot named N'kisi.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3430481.stm
Polished wordsmith
He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.
One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.
When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"
School's in: He is a willing learner
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."
Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication".
In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards.
Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance.
Posted: January 7, 2007, 4:17 pm
by Kryshade
What they really need to go along with that story is some audio clips of the bird talking. Would really help the story to actually hear the bird using some of it's vocabulary.
Pretty amazing stuff if the bird is able to put together pieces of our vocabulary and adapt it's speech/grammer on the fly for various situations.
Posted: January 7, 2007, 4:31 pm
by Keverian FireCry
I'm glad you said that. I googled him and found this. Enjoy!
http://www.sheldrake.org/nkisi/nkisi1_text.html
I want to see a documentary on this...
Posted: January 7, 2007, 7:08 pm
by Zaelath
Call me a skeptic, but sounds like a bunch of tripe to me. Especially when they started getting into the "parrot telepathy"
Posted: January 8, 2007, 7:07 pm
by Lalanae
That recoding didn't sound like any bird I've ever heard. Sounds like a woman.
Posted: January 9, 2007, 12:02 am
by kyoukan
A lot of parrots mimmick sounds exactly as they hear them, so they can sound like other people. I have an african gray parrot that can sound exactly like my telephone to the point that weve actually picked it up when he does it. He also emulates my voice, the doorbell, the oven/microwave timer and just about anything he hears on TV.
This parrot also goes a long way towards explaining Cartalas. Does it type?
Posted: January 9, 2007, 11:05 am
by Vaemas
Now if you could only get him to imitate the Mario Bros. theme, that would rock.
Posted: January 11, 2007, 6:57 am
by Al
I have heard a Lyrebird perfectly mimic a busy highway. It does not surprise me that a parrot could sound like a person.