I read that in a Korean zoo, there is an elephant named Kosik that has apparently learned to say five words in Korean, among them “annyong” or hello and “choah” or good. Elephants are highly social creatures that live in large family groups. They have an elaborate way of communicating with each other by touch, sight and sound. Kosik was apparently isolated from other elephants for many years and it is thought that with his innate need for social interaction, he adapted his sounds in order to strengthen the social association he had with his trainers. 

The most striking feature of elephants is, of course, their trunk, which is a fusion of their nose and upper lip. With a facial structure that is so different from ours, it is not obvious how an elephant might go about making human sounds. However, Kosik wanted to communicate with the people around him, so he found a way. He put his trunk in his mouth and moved his lower jaw in such a way as to overcome his physical limitations—or his “dis-ability”, and make the sounds that he wanted to make back to his trainers.

Something I've regularly faced with my daughter throughout her rehabilitation after a childhood stroke, is the idea that we aren’t all the same and we don’t all have exactly the same capacities. In some cases, our differences are very obvious and in others, less so. Still, in many cases, if there’s something we really want to do, we can find a way, even if it’s a little different, or even if it’s a lot different. In my opinion, that should be good enough – or as Kosik might say, “choah” enough.