
1903 Parrot Academy That Taught Birds to Speak Using Phonographs - tintinnabula
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/parrot-academy-philadelphia-1903
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JoeDaDude
This reminds me of Alex the Parrot [1], an animal that ostensibly learned to
use the language, not just mimic language sounds (though that conclusion is
disputed). Would it be crazy to imagine schools to teach parrots how to use
language, like Alex, and then be able to actually communicate with many
members of another species?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29)

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cblock811
I feel like that wouldn't fit with humanity's ego-centric notion that we are
special somehow, and spoken language is one of those things that qualifies us
as "special". We've had some results teaching gorillas and chimpanzees sign
language: [http://www.koko.org/sign-language](http://www.koko.org/sign-
language). That hasn't changed much either. I think it would be neat though!

