Batyr

Batyr (July 23, 1969 – August 26, 1993) was an Asian elephant claimed to be able to use a large amount of meaningful human speech. Living in a zoo in Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union, Batyr was reported as having a vocabulary of more than 20 phrases. A recording of Batyr saying "Batyr is good", his name and using words such as "drink" and "give" was played on Kazakh state radio and on the First Programme of the Central Television of the USSR — Vremya, in 1980.

Like all cases of talking animals, these claims are subject to the observer-expectancy effect.

Biography

Born on July 23, 1969, at Almaty Zoo, Batyr lived his entire life in the Karaganda Zoo at Karaganda in Kazakhstan. He died in 1993 having never seen or heard another elephant. Batyr was the offspring of once-wild Indian elephants (a subspecies of the Asian elephant). Batyr's mother "Palm" and father "Dubas" had been presented to Kazakhstan's Almaty Zoo by the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Abilities

Batyr, whose name is a Turkic word meaning Dashing Equestrian, Man of Courage or Athlete, was first alleged to speak just before New Year's Day in the winter of 1977 when he was eight years old. Zoo employees were the first to notice his "speech", but he soon delighted zoo-goers at large by appearing to ask his attendants for water and regularly praising or (infrequently) chastising himself. By 1979, his fame as the "Speaking Elephant" had spread in the wake of various mass-media stories about his abilities, many containing considerable fabrication and wild conjecture. Batyr's case was also included in several books on animal behaviour, and in the proceedings of several scientific conferences. These developments drew a spate of zoo visitors, and brought the offer of an exchange—Batyr for a rare Bonobo—from the Czechoslovak Circus; an offer rejected by the zoo's employees.

Baghatur

Baghatur (Mongolian: ᠪᠠᠭᠠᠲᠦᠷ Baghatur/Ba'atur (Modern Mongolian: Баатар Baatar), Turkish: Bağatur/Batur/Bahadır, Russian: Bogatyr) is a historical Turco-Mongol honorific title, in origin a term for "hero" or "valiant warrior". The Papal envoy Plano Carpini compared the title with the equivalent of European Knighthood.

The etymology of this word is uncertain, although the first syllable is very likely the Iranian title word *bag "god, lord". The term was first used by the steppe peoples to the north and west (Mongolia) of China as early as the 7th century as evidenced in Sui dynasty records. It is attested for the Göktürk Khanate in the 8th century, and among the Bulgars of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century.

The word was common among the Mongols and became especially widespread, as an honorific title, in Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire in the 13th century; the title persisted in its successor-states, and later came to be adopted also as a regnal title in the Ilkhanate, in Timurid dynasties etc.