Parrot's oratory stuns scientists

The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing
repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

N'kisi's remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife
Magazine.

N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world.

About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N'kisi could read he would be
able to cope witha wide range of material.

Polished wordsmith

He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.

One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the
aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.

When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"


School's in: He is a willing learner
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its
perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."

Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies
communication".

In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist
opened random envelopes containing picture cards.

Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be
likely by chance.

Captives' frustrations

This was despite the researchers discounting responses like "What ya doing on the phone?" when
N'kisi saw a card of a man with a telephone, and "Can I give you a hug?" with one of a couple
embracing.

Professor Donald Broom, of the University of Cambridge's School of Veterinary Medicine, said:
"The more we look at the cognitive abilities of animals, the more advanced they appear, and the
biggest leap of all has been with parrots."

Alison Hales, of the World Parrot Trust, told BBC News Online: "N'kisi's amazing vocabulary and
sense of humour should make everyone who has a pet parrot consider whether they are meeting
its needs.

"They may not be able to ask directly, but parrots are long-lived, and a bit of research now could
mean an improved quality of life for years."

this link will get you to a recording of the bird talking

http://www.sheldrake.org/nkisi/nkisi1_text.html 

this link will get you to a google search for nkisi

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=N%27kisi&btnG=Google+Search 

all i can say is ai'm speechless.

MMmmmmmmmm....Parrot cake. H.Simpson. X

Ever hear about Alex the African Grey? He is legendary in the "Bird" world.

http://www.alexfoundation.org/ 

950 words??? I'm still trying to teach my cockatiel to whistle for me. She just schreechs when I leave the room...

ajeroth

They are amazing. My wife and I breed parrots as a hobby and they never cease to amaze me. I have one that understands exaclty what he's saying. He will call you by name, insult you, laugh at you, tease you, and love you. I have another that tells jokes like a stand up comic, LOL.

THL, Alex has been in the limelight for years trying to convince the science world that he's not just mimicking humans. I think he's finally winning them over.

Bird Brains!

Barry

THL

i've read about all i can find about alex, but this nkisi floored me. the site with the bird speaking is something.

BMW

i have had everything from a keet to a catalina and everything in between. i am part bird.

i never was successful breeding anything but canaries.

all my birds have been placed with people that breed the birds so the birds can live a sort of normal live and i don't have to spend sat and sun every week cleaning cages.

we had close to 50 birds all in the house.

30 or so finches in a cage i built, 8 or 10 canaries, grey cheek, maroon belly conjur, blue and gold, nape,
gold mantel rosella that never bonded, all hand fed.

i'm keeping toby's grey and gala. the gala hates toby and she assumes the mating position when i stroke her back.

i'm sure you have seen some of her pictures on this board.

i am still reading all the links to this nkisi. he has links in so many languages, i'm surprised i have never heard of him. i know he is a relative of mine.

what birds do you guys breed?

I've seen pics of your birds Rick and they are beauties.

I breed mostly Quaker Parrots, normal green and I have some Blue Quakers. I also have Senagal Parrots, Half Moon Conures and a pair of the worlds largest parakeets, Alexandrines. The Alexandrines are winter breeders and are sitting on eggs now, their first ones!

As pets I have a Double Yellow Headed Amazon, Timneh African Grey and Willie the famous Quaker Parrot, LOL.

Barry

My last bird was a cockatiel, my ex (not the one I'm divorcing now, the one before) pretty well made me give her away. BMW, where are you located? Do you sell the birds you breed?

Did you all read about Churchill's parrot recently? I posted on another site, let me look for it.

I'm still trying to get my Norwegian Blue to talk....beautiful plumage.

CW,
I'm in Houston. We sell most of our birds wholesale but we occasionally sell retail.

I forgot about my pair of cockatiels. She lays a lot of eggs, but seldom produces. She's my oldest bird and is more of a pet.

Barry

I have an African Grey that I bought in 1984. It was while researching birds to buy that I 1st read about Alex. The more that you're around these birds the more you appreciate their intelligence. Mine will call the cat or the dog in MY voice, then laugh at them when they come. He says goodnight in the evening and good morning in the morning; will ask for a drink of a liquid but a bite of a solid. With jello or ice cream he wants a bite-drink. He can imitate virtually any sound from ambulances to farts to a rack of pool balls being broken. They are amazing creatures.

Does anyone recall about a year ago, Oxford University was doing an experiment with two crows. The jist of the experiment was: food was placed in a small bucket with a handle. The bucket was then dropped down a tube that was deep enough so the crows could not grab the handle with their beaks.

A straight wire and a wire with a bent curve on one end were placed nearby. The experiment was to see if the crows could figure out they had to use the bent wire to reach down into the tube to retrieve the bucket of feed, which they did.

One day, one of the crows flew off with the bent wire, so the other crow took the straight wire and bent a hook on one end and pulled out the bucket. The experiment was repeated enough times that the scientists were finally convinced this crow was actually MANUFACTURING a primitive tool.

Excuse me for a bit of a thread jack, but it just points out that members of the animal kingdom are probably a lot more on the ball intellectual wise than we arrogant humans want to admit.

BMW, email me at :
doittome1959
aol
com

Churchill used to let his parrot smoke the butts of his, well, churchills, and the bird gave him some bad advice on how to negotiate at Yalta.

Yeah, but that "Blood , sweat and tears" speech the bird wrote was pretty good.