Personal names are a universal feature of human language. Elephants are also capable of it, according to a study.
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This is a fascinating study which has just been published on Monday June 10 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Elephants, symbols of memory and wisdom, call to each other, not by imitating each other, as dolphins and parrots do, for example, but by giving each other pet names.
This is the first time that a study has revealed the ability of non-human animals to address their recipient in this way by giving them a proper name, invented especially for them. Babar, Jumbo or Dumbo perhaps? Although the researchers do not go into this level of detail, they reveal not only the capacity of elephants to emit specially imagined vocalizations, but also to recognize these vocalizations, since they react when called by their little name, just like that. ignoring appeals to others.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers used an artificial intelligence algorithm that analyzed the calls of two wild herds in Kenya, and identified 469 distinct trumpets. “Complex sentences”, according to researchers, with very varied sounds, ranging from powerful trumpets to rumbles so weak that even human ears could not hear them.
Humans with whom elephants definitely have a lot in common: little names, but also the ability to mourn their dead, funeral rites and of course their elephant memory. Besides, when it comes to memory, are humans really that remarkable, since they often make huge mistakes?
In any case, this new scientific study should undoubtedly invite us all to defend what Romain Gary in his novel The Roots of Heaven called “a certain idea of man”. A novel which features Morel and his fight against the extermination of elephants. Because we “starts by saying, let’s say, that elephants are too big, too cumbersome, that they topple electric poles, trample crops, that they are an anachronism, and then we end up saying the same thing about freedom. He It’s time to reassure ourselves by showing that we are capable of preserving this giant, clumsy and magnificent freedom, which still lives alongside us.”.