A whale with words: Orca mimics human speech

PARIS: Her head above water, Wikie the killer whale looks at the human trainer next to her pool, listens, then loudly vocalises: “Hello.”

It is not a perfect imitation, but, astonishingly, recognisable.

It is the first scientific demonstration of an orca mimicking human words, which also included “Amy” — the name of Wikie’s handler — “Bye-Bye”, and “One-Two-Three”.

“We were not expecting a perfect match, like a parrot,” researcher Jose Abramson of the Complutense University of Madrid said of the experiment reported yesterday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Yet in a trial with six different words or phrases, some of Wikie’s attempts were ‘a very high quality match’, especially given that orcas’ vocal anatomy is ‘totally different’ to ours.

It was hard not to jump for joy when Wikie first ‘spoke’”, Abramson told AFP, adding the research team had not quite known what to expect.

“When we tried ‘ hello’ and she did the sound ... some emotional responses came from the trainers. For us (the scientists) it was very difficult not to say anything ...”

Seeking to measure orcas’ ability to copy new sounds, Abramson and a team turned to Wikie, a captive killer whale at the Marineland Aquarium in Antibes, southern France.

Trained to perform tricks for Marineland visitors, Wikie was a good candidate as she had already learnt the gesture commanding her to ‘copy’ what her trainer does.

As part of the trial, the killer whale was asked to mimic neverbefore-heard sounds made by other orcas with different dialects from different family groups.

Then, she was made to repeat human words. — AFP