|
A search on "talking parrots" led us to several variations of an amusing, slightly off-color joke about two female parrots who only know how to say one thing. We stopped to chuckle, but then continued on to a PBS site called Parrots: Look Who's Talking. The site introduced us to Psittaciformes, the order of vocal birds that includes lorikeets, cockatoos, and parakeets, as well as over 340 species of parrot. It turns out the bird with the record for the largest vocabulary of human phrases is not a human-sounding African Grey or Yellow-headed Amazon parrot, but their
tiny cousin, the budgie (short for budgerigar, a small Australian parrot). Biologist Michael Schindlinger studies how parrots communicate in their native habitat. Although parrots make a wide range of sounds in the wild, their complex communications are musical -- they may be singing for social status. Schindlinger's recordings of Yellow-headed Amazons in Northern Mexico show that isolated social groups have highly localized "neighborhood" dialects. Many sources imply that parrots are simply gifted mimics who lack language comprehension and cognitive ability. The work of Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a parrot intelligence advocate, and her star pupil Alex, an African Grey, have helped to change that assessment. Visit
the The Alex Foundation to watch a movie of Alex identifying colors, shapes, numbers, and actions. One of Dr. Pepperberg's graduate students is at work on InterPet Explorer, software that will enable parrots to interact with Internet-connected computers. Dr. Pepperberg and several other online sources emphasize that not all parrots are capable of human speech -- a fact that potential parrot owners should be aware of. All parrots have the physical ability for speech, but some breeds are more likely than others to pick up human language.
Just as with people, much of a parrot's ability also depends on the individual bird, its teacher, and its environment. Nonetheless, we found free advice and a variety of products for training a pet bird to talk. Repetition, attention, and rewards may help teach Polly to curse like a sailor, sing like Pavarotti, or even revive an extinct Mayan dialect.
|
