…oh…wait…

The Times reports that South Korea’s Everland Zoo has a young male elephant that can speak several words of Korean (which is more than I can say).

“We asked native Korean speakers to write down what they heard and they understood him,” said Angela S. Stoeger, a biologist at the University of Vienna and one of the study’s authors. “We also compared his imitative vocalizations with that of other elephants, and it was very different.”

The animal actually learned to generate the words by putting his trunk in his mouth, which is pretty amazing. He has another elephant to socialize with, and speaks elephant (that’s a technical term) with her; but with his human handlers, he speaks in Korean. Which is very cool.

The fact that he can say the words, though, doesn’t establish that he knows what they mean.

It is not clear, however, how much Koshik understands, or whether he is capable of learning more. While he seems to know the meaning of “sit,” for instance, he does not expect his trainers to sit when he says the word himself.

Intriguing.