Staff at a South Korean amusement park says a 16-year-old male Asian elephant named Kosik can make sounds imitating up to eight Korean words, including "sit," "no," "yes," and "lie down."
The pachyderm produces human-like sounds by putting his trunk in his mouth and shaking it while exhaling - similar to how people whistle with fingers in their mouths.
It seems that the elephant is trying to create solidarity with its trainer by mimicking his words.
Spectrograms show that Kosik's voice frequency is very similar to his keeper's when he makes human sounds with 94% accuracy!
It is unclear if Kosik knows the meaning of the sounds he makes.