ChatterBank2 mins ago
talking animals
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Is a parrot the only animal that can talk English even if it is only a couple of words
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Humans are an animal, and many of them do talk some form of English...
I once heard on the radio what was supposed to be a sealion speaking. It could say about five words (in an American accent). It sounded much like Scooby Doo, as you might expect.
I can't remember enough about it to say whether it was a genuine item or a wind-up -- anyone else remember this?
Some parrots can say more than a few words, and even understand what some words mean. There's a famous one which can answer simple questions about objects, such as what colour or shape they are, giving one-word answers. It can also pick out objects by size, shape etc. I think it has a vocabulary of about 50 words.
Apart from many species of parrot and parakeet, quite a few other birds can mimic words. Ones I know of are European jay, magpie & jackdaw (no doubt other crows too), as well as starling & mynah.
Philtaz - budgies are a parakeet, which is parrot family if not an actual parrot. There are also cockatiels, which if I remember right are not quite parrots, but not quite parakeets either (the one I had could only say "squawk!").
So all those birds are in the parrot family, crow family & starling family (mynahs are starlings). I wonder about other birds known for mimicry, such as lyre birds and marsh warbler?