Parrots and Ravens - Speaking

[FanaticusIncendi]

Aside from my own experiences working as a veterinary technician and in wildlife rehabilitation, not to mention an avid life-long interest in wildlife observation, a quick internet search reveals the following:

The American Society of Crows and Ravens states:

"They do it quite well, [mimic speach] with potential vocabularies large or larger than parrots."

Brackets are mine, link found here

Wikipedia posits:

Like other corvids, Ravens can mimic sounds from their environment, including human speech....

...Common Ravens have among the largest brains of any bird species. Specifically, their hyperpallium is large (See avian pallium). For an avian, they display ability in problem solving, as well as other cognitive processes such as imitation and insight.

And finally, PBS recently made a really nice nature video on the raven. They state that the raven is:
"Long recognized as one of the most intelligent birds"
 This link to their website has some great information as well as entertaining clips from the show.

As a personal aside, I find most of the nature-based stuff I see going on in DnD utterly ridiculous and often poorly RPd (likely because I don't imagine there are many people spending intense amounts of time online who also spend enough time in nature to know anything about it). So in the face of things like big jungle cats spawning 2-4 or more to an area, or skinning an animal using nothing more than a twig... or nothing less than a greatsword... I don't think talking ravens are that much of a dealbreaker to immersion. *shrugs*

[Mort]

Yeah. Seriously. Sloppy Sloppy job on the part of world-builders.

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But the examples you gave me dont provide any sweet videos demonstrating it (and they dont seem the most reliable <_<). Saint-Thomas is not pleased. :-( . But I enjoyed the effort you put in trying to burn me.

Intelligence, which is probably defined as spatial memory in the case of your show, has very little to do, here, -- Similarly, if they are giving it abstract test like pecking good vs. bad food pellets.

It's cool that the Raven and other really smart birds can remember more than 200 location for where they store their food. Or that their behavioural habits are judged as 'intelligent' by the experts in ornithology.

ASCAR whom is a non-professional group , and trying to generate interest in corvids and therefore biased, is not evidence either in my eyes. It's not university-based even :| . Hence -- I'll just end this and:

* * *

I'll make the ruling by common stereotypes:
Parrots: Simple phrases that supplement roleplay.
Ravens: No speech.