Can an elephant talk?

Answer 1

This is an excellent question. It has been recently discovered that elephants can learn to imitate sounds that are not typical of their species, the first known example after humans of vocal learning in a non-primate terrestrial mammal.

Professor Eric Jarvis of Duke University and Professor Mello at Rockefeller University define vocal learning as:
"the substrate of human language, is a very rare trait. It is known to be present in only 6 groups of animals: 3 groups of birds (parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds) and 3 groups of mammals (bats, cetaceans[whales/dolphins], and humans). All other groups of animals are thought to produce genetically innate vocalizations. To understand this concept, it is important to distinguish vocal learning from auditory learning. Auditory learning is the ability to make sound associations, such as a dog learning how to respond to the sound "sit". All vertebrates have auditory learning. Vocal learning is the ability to imitate sounds that you hear, such as a human or a parrot imitating the sound "sit". Currently only vocal learners have been found to have forebrain regions dedicated to vocal learning and production of these learned vocalizations. Vocal non-learners only have been found to have non-forebrain vocal regions responsible for the production of innate vocalizations".

In the March 2005 issue of Nature Dr. Joyce Poole indicates that elephants are also capable of vocal learning. They describe two examples of vocal imitation by African savannah elephants, Loxodonta africana, a terrestrial mammal that lives in a complex fission–fusion society. The researchers explain that vocal imitation is a useful form of acoustic communication that helps to maintain individual-specific bonds within changing social groupings. On the Nature website you may listen to .wav files of the elephants.

Vocal learning is felt to be one piece of the biological substrate needed for (spoken) language to develop.

Katy Payne, a researcher in the Bioacoustics Program of the Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University, has recorded elephants communicating in infrasound—sound below the frequency that human ears can hear. She made her first recordings at the zoo in Portland, Oregon and later in East Africa and the Amboseli Park of Kenya.

On the elephants of Kilimanjaro website, there are downloadable .wav files of

On the Yahoo news website is a video clip of elephants at a North Korean Zoo who can vocalize 8 words in Korean includint: sit, no, yes and lie down.

Answer 2

The sound they make is at a very low frequency, lower than what humans can hear, but you can record it and speed it up to increase the pitch to a point where you can hear it.

Elephant language is very similar to the language of whales, which is no surprise because elephants and whales are very closely related (genetically).

Of course, they also make the trumpeting sound which you can hear.
If you want to listen, go to
www.elephantcountryweb.com/Elephantsounds.html

Answer 3

Yes. I've seen one making a trunk call.

By the way have you heard of the two Indian ladies talking. One said 'Its Wooomb W-O-O-O-M-B'. The other said 'No, its definitely 'Wommmbbb W-O-M-M-M-B-B-B'
An English lady passing by said, in her upper class accent, 'You're both wrong, its Womb W-O-M-B'
The two Indian ladies looked at here and one said, 'What do you know? I bet you've never even heard an elephant fart under water'.

Answer 4

Some believe so. This is a link to an animal expert reported on the BBC website who says elephants can make about 75 noises to communicate

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid_2455000/2455449.stm

Answer 5

To other elephants yes.

Answer 6

i asked the same question to an elephant recently and the answer i got was NO

Answer 7

in elephant language yes

Answer 8

They communicate via low level rumbling noises created in their stomachs, this can be heard over very long distances. It is actually louder than a lions roar.

Answer 9

yes i saw one in a telephone box making a trunk call

Answer 10

Yes, only to its own species.