Here's a wonderful story to follow up on some of the sad news about which I've been writing. We've just learned that a captive male Asian elephant named Koshik can imitate human speech using his trunk (see also). Koshik "has learnt to imitate human speech and can say five words in Korean: hello, no, sit down, lie down and good. The zoo animal places the tip of his trunk into his mouth to transform his natural low rumble into a convincing impression of a human voice." Koshik can also imitate the pitch and timbre of human speech.
The story of Koshik's amazing linguistic abilities follow up on a story of a beluga whale named Noc who can also imitate human speech.
