BIRDS & PARROTS Talking and Singing

Whether parrots can ever understand what they're saying is a matter of debate. Researcher Irene Pepperberg trained an African Grey Parrot named Alex to speak with a vocabulary of some 100 human words. ... Others wonder whether Alex happened to possess a unique language capacity.

In any-case, it is extremely funny and cute when they chirp, sing and talk. Lacking vocal cords, birds are thought to make tones and sounds using throat muscles and membranes – the syrinx in particular. ... Songbirds and parrots are the two groups of birds able to learn and mimic human speech. Pet birds can be taught to speak by their owners by mimicking their voice.