(CNN) – From the water, a high-pitched squeak calls out “hello” but the sound is not coming from a human, it’s a whale.
A team of international researchers have taught a female orca whale to imitate human speech, documenting what is considered to be a world first in a paper published Wednesday.
Using Wikie the whale, who lives at the Marineland Aquarium in southern France as their test subject, scientists discovered a whale could learn new vocalizations by imitating its trainer.
Wikie was able to repeat a handful of words including “hello,” “bye bye,” “one, two” and “Amy.”
“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),” the experts revealed in their paper.
Most mammals use the larynx to produce sound and as humans we are able to speak in part because of the motor ability we possess. The same can not be said for toothed cetaceans (think whales and dolphins) as they produce sounds in their nasal passages, thus making Wikie’s audible performance even more remarkable.
To determine whether an orca whale really could learn new vocalizations, Josep Call, professor in evolutionary origins of mind at the University of St Andrews and a co-author of the study, explained how the team chose human sounds, which are not already in the whale’s repertoire.
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This killer whale learned how to imitate human speech by repeating sounds that mimic words like “hello,” “bye bye,” “one, two” and “Amy” https://t.co/WtR5yfVwA4 pic.twitter.com/GPdxf6udiA
— CNN (@CNN) February 1, 2018
This killer whale learned how to imitate human speech by repeating sounds that mimic words like “hello,” “bye bye,” “one, two” and “Amy” https://t.co/WtR5yfVwA4 pic.twitter.com/GPdxf6udiA
— CNN (@CNN) February 1, 2018
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