A Killer Whale Learned To Say ‘Hello’ and 'Bye Bye' — and The Sound Is Oddly Terrifying
Some wildlife species have the incredible talent of imitating human sounds and behavior. For instance, birds like parrots can quickly learn to say certain words and phrases, capturing the attention of everyone present around them. On several occasions, even primates and elephants have been observed trying to mimic human actions. This often reflects their intelligence and social nature, and helps them to build a deep bond with the people they're surrounded by. In one such remarkable incident, a killer whale, which lives at the Marineland Aquarium in southern France, was spotted mimicking human speech, astonishing both scientists and researchers.
This observation was published in a study titled, 'Imitation of novel conspecific and human speech sounds in the killer whale.' It was published by the journal called The Royal Society Publishing. For their study, researchers took Wikie the whale as their prime subject and found that she was very quick in learning new words by observing her trainer, as reported by CNN. After quite some time, Wikie successfully learned to say several human words like 'hello, bye bye, one, two, and Amy.' There are only a few marine animals—like whales and dolphins—that can hear a new sound and then reproduce it on their own.
The authors of the study claimed, “We found that the subject made recognizable copies of all familiar and novel conspecific and human sounds tested and did so relatively quickly (most during the first 10 trials and three in the first attempt).” While humans and most other mammals speak using the larynx, whales and dolphins make sounds through their noses. This makes Wikie’s ability to mimic words even more impressive. Dr. Jose Abramson, a professor at Complutense University in Madrid and one of the co-authors of the study, suggested that some basic conversations with Wikie could also become possible in the upcoming years.
As reported by the BBC, Abramson said, "Yes, it's conceivable ... if you have labels, descriptions of what things are. It has been done before with a famous grey parrot and dolphins using American sign language; sentences like 'bring me this object' or 'put this object above or below the other'." However, he cautioned against imposing human ideas onto animals, emphasizing that it’s more valuable to study and understand how each species naturally communicates in its habitat. To test if an orca whale could learn new sounds, the team carefully picked human words that weren't in the whale's repertoire.
Another co-author of the study, Dr. Josep Call, said, “Human sounds are easily recognizable by us, and if they could produce a human sound that is not in their normal repertoire, that would mean that the only way they could learn it is by listening to it and reproducing it. And that’s what we did." Call also noted that dolphins and beluga whales have previously tried to imitate sounds from different species they live with. But don’t expect to have a conversation with the whales yet. Scientists say Wikie isn’t actually understanding the meaning of the words she mimics. Nevertheless, they are optimistic that further studies might reveal whether these marine species can understand the sounds they imitate.
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