Do parrots understand the words they speak?

To claim that parrots “speak” is an approximation; saying that they “communicate” is more accurate. And if they do so by borrowing elements of our language, it is partly because they see us as members of their social circle.

While domestication generally gives animals a more natural ability to learn how to communicate with us, as it does with dogs and cats, parrots are fairly unique. In the bond they form with their owners, human language - or rather, its imitation - is their preferred way of communicating and interacting with them.

When a parrot produces sounds that resemble the shape of human speech, our brains naturally assign meaning or intention to what it says. Yet there is a gap between perception and reality: however intelligent these birds may be, they do not understand words in the way we do. They do, however, fully understand the consequences of the words they imitate; for them, language is a causal chain they use to gain control over their living environment. Does knowing how to use a word without knowing why it exists make them semantic beings?

Parrots and language: a one-way relationship?

In their natural environment, parrots are highly social animals: they live in groups and communicate with one another in remarkably sophisticated ways. There are even dialects associated with particular regions or colonies, but we cannot understand them: they are bird calls and, even with their highly developed repertoire, our ears hear only a melody without syntax.

When they are kept in captivity and no longer have peers to address, however, they turn to us. From their perspective, we belong to the flock and, through imitation, they model their vocal behaviour on ours to create a connection. “It is their way of saying: you are my human, and I am going to learn your language,” says Annie Colbert, editor-in-chief of Popular Science and owner of a very talkative female parrot called Polly.

This behaviour remains relatively rare among birds and is shared by only a minority of species: parrots, corvids - crows and ravens - mynahs and starlings. They all have two features in common: a neural architecture specialised in learning and producing complex sound sequences, along with a distinctive vocal organ, the syrinx. Located in the chest cavity and surprisingly more sophisticated than our larynx, it enables them to control with great precision the airflow leaving their bronchi and the vibrations of their tympanic membranes, giving them the ability to produce an exceptionally broad range of sounds.

The frequencies and tones of human speech are simply sounds among many others, and parrots reproduce them with such accuracy that they can deceive our ears.

Still, being able to reproduce a word does not mean understanding it. When a parrot can say “hello!” or even longer phrases such as “happy birthday!”, it is no more greeting you than congratulating you: it has merely learnt that these sound sequences bring predictable, repeatable consequences in its environment. Its relationship with language is entirely functional, based on a logic radically different from our own, yet effective enough to sustain the illusion that we can hold a conversation with it.

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Reason beneath the feathers

For instance, the YouTube video above shows an African grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), one of the world’s most intelligent parrot species. Called Appollo, it can identify the objects its owner shows it, as well as their colour and material; this goes beyond mere mimicry. African greys have been studied extensively and are almost a category of their own: we now know with certainty that they can categorise objects according to their physical properties and handle abstract concepts.

Parrots may imitate without understanding, certainly, but some appear to have reached a higher stage of cognition and animal communication. Like the African grey, others display astonishing abilities: the blue-and-yellow macaw (Ara ararauna) can show a form of empathy in certain situations; the kea (Nestor notabilis) excels at group problem-solving; and the Goffin’s cockatoo (Cacatua goffiniana) can even make tools and solve puzzles. This is such a wide-ranging picture that it could undermine the relevance of this article’s central question. Whether or not parrots understand the words they utter, their relationship with the world is rich enough that the issue of semantics alone seems, in retrospect, almost secondary.