The elephant that can speak Korean

An elephant in Korea has become a language student. Koshik, a 22-year-old male elephant, is already fluent in speaking "elephantese," but he is now trying to learn the Korean language Hangul. A report about Koshik was printed in the online journal "Current Biology". The author of the report is Dr Angela Stoeger-Horwath, who works at the University of Vienna in Austria. Researchers said Koshik has been listening to human speech for many years and has slowly learned to copy it. He can now say the Korean for hello, sit down, no, lie down, good, not yet, and yes. Dr Stoeger-Horwath asked 16 Koreans to listen to 47 recordings of Koshik. They could all understand what he was saying.

The researchers gave a few reasons why they think Koshik can talk. One possibility is that he has a very close relationship with his trainer, Kim Jong-gab. Mr Kim often sleeps near Koshik to keep him company. The trainer talks to him every day, so Koshik copied what he heard. Another is that the elephant is lonely and wants to communicate with people and have friends. The research team said the way Koshik makes sounds is very unusual - he uses his trunk to reproduce human speech. They said he is much better at making vowel sounds than consonant sounds. Trainer Kim Jong-gab said he has one more phrase that he wants to teach Koshik - "Saranghae," or "I love you."