From Chic Silber

At the Everland Zoo in South Korea there is a young male asian elephant that can speak Korean His vocabulary includes “annyong” (hello) “anja” (sit down) “aniya” (no) “nuo” (lie down) and “choah” (good) Researchers say the elephant whose name is Koshik vocalizes in a novel way he puts his trunk in his mouth In fact Koshik seems to imitate the pitch and timbre of human speech and of his trainers in particular The researchers think that Koshik started imitating human speech out of a need to socialize For seven years as a juvenile at a critical stage in his development he was the only elephant at the zoo It is not clear however how much Koshik understands or whether he is capable of learning more While he seems to know the meaning of “sit” he does not expect his trainers to sit when he says the word Since 2002 Koshik has had a female Asian elephant as a companion although he interacts and socializes with the female using typical calls he also continues to produce his Korean utterances with humans