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Killer¹ Whale Culture Revealed By Mimicking² Us

Killer whales, also called orcas, are like dolphins and belugas—they all have a wide vocal³ repertoire⁴. But orcas also have uniquedialects among different pods. Which suggests the animals can learn new and unique sounds by imitating mom, or another whale.Researchers tested that premise⁵ by asking a killer whale named Wikie to imitate novel sounds from another killer whale, like this [Wolf sound] or this [Creaking door sound].

虎鲸也被称为逆戟鲸，就像海豚和白鲸，它们都有广泛的声乐表演系统。“orca的声音”但是orcas在不同的鲸类中也有独特性。这表明，动物可以通过模仿妈妈或从另一种鲸鱼那里来学习新的独特的声音。研究人员通过询问名叫Wikie的虎鲸，来模仿来自另一只虎鲸的新颖声音，来测试这个前提，就像这样[狗叫声]或者[敲门声]。

And then: Wikie's trainers asked her to imitate them speaking English. Here's how she did: ["Amy", "Hello]Pretty impressive, especially because she's using her nasal passages to imitate sounds we make with our vocal cords.

然后：Wikie的培训师要求她模仿他们说英语。她的做法如下：[“艾米”，“你好”]非常令人印象深刻，特别是因为她用她的鼻腔，模仿我们用声带发出的声音。

And a technical acoustic⁶ analysis of the original and imitated sounds showed that Wikie was doing a reliable job of mimicry⁷, suggesting orcas do indeed possess the ability of vocal imitation. The study is in the Proceedings⁸ of the Royal Society B.

对原始的和模仿的声音进行的技术性声学分析表明，Wikie正在做一个可靠的模仿工作，这表明虎鲸确实具有模仿声音的能力。 这项研究结果发表在《英国皇家学会会议》杂志上。

So how long before Wikie's fluent in English? Well: "This is not our goal." Study author José Zamorano-Abramson, a comparative psychologist. "We are focusing on one aspect of vocal language, which is the capacity for vocal imitation." Because the ability to imitate implies a way to transmit culture… and preserve each orca pod's unique repertoire. 

那么，Wikie要说出流利的英语还有多长时间呢?那么：“这不是我们的目标。”研究作者JoséZamorano-Abramson——比较心理学家。“我们专注于声乐语言的一个方面，这就是声音模仿的能力。”因为模仿能力意味着一种传播文化的方式......并且保留每个虎鲸的独特特点。