Another Kind of Mind:

What animal speaks using coherent language that is understandable by man? A talking bird called Arielle does. The interspecies barrier broke when Arielle began to communicate by volunteering information through English statements. She is a beautiful 19-year-old tropical bird that expresses herself spontaneously using more than 4000 English words, phrases, and sentences. Her verbal progress compares to that of a young child.

The Beatles tune, "Got to get you into my life," presented a nagging riddle. The puzzle resolved after years of walking down a road with my macaw, Arielle. The cryptic lyric, "… find another kind of mind there," inspired me to describe my linguistic adventure with a talking bird.

Arielle has the ability to communicate across species using human speech when she wishes to do so. Those who know Arielle and listen carefully to recordings of her voluntarily spoken private monologues discover that her speech reveals her thoughts. Readers understand Arielle's speech by considering her statements with the provided background information.

Hundreds of transcriptions of Arielle's voluntary speech reveal meaningful messages that form the core of Another Kind of Mind. An unanticipated statement by Arielle reveals that she listens to what people say and that she is capable of attributing speech to an individual by name. Many of her statements provide concrete examples that one talking bird can learn to communicate ideas through human language.

Another Kind of Mind traces a bird's speech development. The book provides details about how Arielle can:

• vocalize in a previously little recognized purr-like voice,
• construct a monologue or dialogue about a topic,
• reveal her sensory impressions about the environment,
• substitutes nouns and personal pronouns correctly,
• rhyme, express emotion, and construct verbal jokes,
• apply logic in her speech and speak using proper syntax,
• organize thoughts using phrases and sequences of statements.

Another Kind of Mind guides readers toward understanding Arielle's English words, phrases, and sentences, as her expressions provide insight into her mind, personality, and thoughts. Her meaningful speech communicates something never before evident from utterances made by a bird. Arielle is a conscious being.

If you are not able to perfectly understand the speech samples below on first hearing, you are not alone. By coordinating the sound clips with the text in the book, readers typically understand between 65% and 95% of Arielle's utterances. The macaw speaks an unusual dialect of English.