1903 Parrot Academy That Taught Birds to Speak Using Phonographs

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/parrot-academy-philadelphia-1903

by tintinnabula • 9 years ago

34 3 9 years ago

JoeDaDude• 9 years ago

This reminds me of Alex the Parrot [1], an animal that ostensibly learned to use the language, not just mimic language sounds (though that conclusion is disputed). Would it be crazy to imagine schools to teach parrots how to use language, like Alex, and then be able to actually communicate with many members of another species?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29

cblock811• 9 years ago

I feel like that wouldn't fit with humanity's ego-centric notion that we are special somehow, and spoken language is one of those things that qualifies us as "special". We've had some results teaching gorillas and chimpanzees sign language: http://www.koko.org/sign-language. That hasn't changed much either. I think it would be neat though!

soperj• 9 years ago

It would be crazier still to imagine a point where enough parrots were taught that they could start teaching other parrots.

1903 Parrot Academy That Taught Birds to Speak Using Phonographs

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