如果看过电视节目里鹦鹉的说话表演,一定会对鹦鹉惟妙惟肖、人云亦云的说话本领记忆深刻吧。“你好”“欢迎”之类的声音几乎能以假乱真。鹦鹉也是因为这个特殊的模仿技能被很多人喜欢。 并且鹦鹉具有鲜艳的羽毛和漂亮的体型,所以它是一种比较受人类喜爱养的一种鸟类。那么为什么鹦鹉会学人类说话呢?
This is what a macaque monkey would sound like if it suddenly proposed.
Will you marry me?
Yeah, I hate it too.
Let's play it again: Will you marry me?
Now of course, that's not a real monkey, it's a computer simulation that was part of a study on monkey vocal tracts.
And what it shows is that monkeys have a strikingly similar vocal structure to humans.
But despite all these similarities, they can't speak.
So here's a question.
Compared to monkeys, birds are nothing like us.
Yet this bird's talking to me right now.
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