Lv3. Ability B_Parrot

Why can parrots talk? - Grace Smith-Vidaurre and Tim Wright

In 2010, a parrot（オウム） that spoke with the same British accent as his owner went missing（行方不明の）. They were reunited（再会する）four years later, but the intervenin（間の）time left a conspicuous（人目をひく）mark: the parrot had lost its British accent and was instead chattering（ぺちゃくちゃしゃべる）away in Spanish. Parrots and several other birds are the only other animals that produce human speech（話し言葉）. And some parrots do it almost uncannily（不可思議なほどに）well. 

How is this possible? Most wild parrots are highly social. They use vocalizations（発声）for mating（交尾）and territorial（縄張りの）displays（誇示行動） and to coordinate（うまく調整する） group movements. Some species have flocks（群れ）that continuously split and fuse（一緒になる）, meaning individual parrots must be able to communicate with many others. Parrots use contact calls to interact and stay in touch when others are out of sight. 

But how exactly they use these calls depends on the species and the size of their flocks. Monk parakeets（オキナインコ）, for example, live in large colonies（群生地）and have individual contact calls that help them stand out. Yellow-naped Amazon parrots（キエリボウシインコ）, on the other hand, forage（食料などを探し回る）in smaller groups that learn and share highly similar contact calls. This need for sophisticated（精巧な）mimicry（真似ること） may partially（部分的に）explain why yellow-naped Amazons and some other parrots can closely imitate（真似る）a wide range of sounds– including the human voice. 

So, how does a parrot actually declare（はっきりと言う）that “Polly wants a cracker”? A person would string these sounds together（どうにかしてうまくこれらの音を出す）using their larynx（喉頭）, the organ at the top of their windpipe（気管）. It consists of muscles and a vibrating（振動する） membrane（膜）that controls airflow（気流）. They’d finely（精巧に）shape the vocalization into enunciated（はっきり発音された）words using their tongue and lips. 

For a parrot, however, the sound would originate in its syrinx（鳥類の鳴管）, located at the base of its windpipe. Many other birds have two vibrating membranes within this organ. But parrots, like us, have just one. As sounds leave the airway（気道）, parrots shape them using their tongues and beaks（くちばし）. They can do this because they have especially flexible, powerful tongues that help them manipulate（巧みに操る） seeds and nuts. And while parrots’ beaks are rigid（かたい）, they have very flexible jaw（あご）joints（関節）, giving them a lot of control over how wide and how quickly they open their beaks. Like other animals with learned vocalizations, parrot brains contain interconnected（相互に連結した）regions that allow them to hear, remember, modify, and produce complex sounds. 

But while songbirds（鳴き鳥）have just one song system in their brains, almost all parrots seem to have an additional circuit（回路）. Scientists think that this might give them extra flexibility when it comes to learning the calls of their own species and ours. With this specialized anatomy（構造）, parrots can bark, scream, curse（ののしる）, and recite（暗唱する） factoids（ちょっとした面白い情報）. One intrepid（勇敢な） lost parrot managed to get back home after repeating his full name and address to helpful strangers. But these impressive abilities raise another question: do parrots actually understand what they’re saying? 

When most captive（捕らわれた）parrots talk, they’re likely attempting to form social bonds in the absence of their own species. Many probably have associations with words and may be drawn（注意を引かれる）to ones that elicit（引き出す）certain responses– hence（従って）their capacity for profanity（罰当たりな言葉）. 

But, especially after training, parrots have been observed to say things in the appropriate contexts and assign meaning to words– saying “good night” at the end of the day, asking for certain treats（ご褒美）, or counting and picking objects. One extensively（広範囲にわたって）trained African gray parrot named Alex became the first non-human animal to pose（提示する）an existential（存在に関する）question when he asked what color he was. Whether they’re belting（大声で歌う）Beyoncé, head-banging（頭を振る）to classic rock, or rattling（スラスラと言う） off cuss（ののしり）words at zoo-goers（行く人）, parrots are constantly astounding（驚かせる）us– as they have been for millennia（何千年）. 
But our fascination with parrots has also made them vulnerable（危険などにさらされやすい）. Sought by poachers（密猟者）and pet traders, while losing their habitats to deforestation（森林破壊）, wild populations have decreased dramatically（急激に）. To truly understand parrots, we need to preserve and study them in the wild.