How Elephant Families Communicate and Bond | Secrets of the Elephants

For the last 48 years, Dr. Joyce Poole has been eavesdropping on elephant families, learning their language.

"I speak to elephants. I rumbled to them if they seem upset. I say hello and things. Their vocabulary is very large. Elephants have over 30 vocalizations. Their rumbles, the low frequency calls. Their roars, their trumpet, their cries. Wants to suckle. Yeah. Oh. So that's when it escalates. That's when the suckle rumble didn't work. And then you have to escalate. So saying, Mum, put your leg forward. Mom is not being very co-operative. There's an ally, mother. Just like a baby sitter. She doesn't have any milk, but she can comfort the baby."

"Females from the age about three, four years old will try and take care of babies. That was called a Bruv Rumble. It’s a kind of (roar) like, oh, poor me. And the ally mother responded with a reassuring cou rumble. Okay, that's lovely. See how reaching back there she's trying to show the baby where to suckle. So even though the ally mother is not able to produce milk like mum does, she does provide comfort and that forms a close bond."

"Still making that little sound that's like I want it's a it's a sucker rumble. But it's a more complaining one. Obviously, it's not getting any milk. Okay. Now it's going to mum to get some real milk suckle rumble that she puts her leg forward to let the calf suckle. Very cute."

"After decades decoding the calls of savanna elephants, Joyce has discovered a language more elaborate than we ever imagined. Elephants do combine different types of calls. They can combine and make a rumble, roar, rumble, roar, rumble or a rumble trumpet. A snort trumpet. What we don't know is whether by combining those two different types, they're making it, in a sense, a new word."

"Elephant conversations can be incredibly complex. All of their rumbles contain infrasonic components that is below the level of human hearing. And elephants can hear these powerful rumbles from miles away and also pick them up as vibrations through their feet and trunk. Sometimes they can back and forth for up to an hour, literally having a kind of conversation or having a discussion about something."

"It's very obvious. It's not just noise. It has meaning. So like us, they communicate about some of the same things that we do. And this communication is part of the glue that holds the whole family together."