Thread by @allgebrah

as linguists decipher elephant language, they are puzzled by what appears to be a large and recent body of loanwords from an unknown species, but eventually it is identified as 20th century truck engine sounds that have come to mean "[I am] moving towards [location implied]"

furthermore there are multiple registers to it, with the 'train' register being more hissy and implying unstoppability, and the 'car' register (higher in pitch) indicating playfulness

it also turns out that elephants are excellent mechanics, having great strength, a natural talent for identifying engine problems by sound alone and encyclopedic memory of replacement parts

I'm not even making this up soundcloud.com/elephantvoices

there is also a popular elephant joke going roughly like:
[car and truck sounds simultaneously]
[honk and crash]
[car starts up again]
[car receding in the distance, inflected to also mean "serves you right"]
(for best effect, the car sounds are made by a calf)

some other things they found:
- increasing/decreasing pitch (doppler effect) indicates direction of movement (towards/away) and can even be modulated for swerves etc
- gear shift pitch (sawtooth like) indicates great acceleration (often used for comic effect)

@SleevelessRube oh here's the recording I meant to link media.ccc.de/v/emf2024-216-…

@SleevelessRube also there's this

https://x.com/sagabal2/status/1874899117450854413

@amberjans @AbrahamValdez_ the talk itself is pretty neat but more about experimental UX (something I do too but which has less to do with language proper)