Nathan Bierma, in a linguistics column, alerted me to an article in "Nature" about African elephants being capable of imitating sounds, including the rumble of trucks. Lieberman on the Language Log is skeptical, always, about reports of animal language abilities.

Lieberman writes about vocal learning, versus auditory learning. With vocal learning the animal can imitate the sounds being heard. Only vocal learners have forebrain regions dedicated to learning vocalizations. There are only 6 groups of animals that are vocal learners, including 3 groups of birds (parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds) and 3 groups of mammals (bats, cetaceans, and humans). Vocal non-learners don't have forebrain vocal regions, and they only produce genetically innate vocalizations.

I find this all very interesting.

It's pretty well established that elephants do communicate via low frequency rumblings that they feel in their feet rather than hear. So, we've got tactile learning in this case!

This hot news item just came in from www.fakenews.com "Researchers using computer-based language interpreter machines have translated the 'truck rumble' uttered by the elephant thus: Hey, Good Buddy! Tell your driver not to put the pedal to the metal on the Limpopo River Bridge; Smokey's taking pictures."