[Have you ever heard a turtle laugh? Probably not. Still, the odd, rasping noise she makes at the burbled "bastard" is unmistakably an attempt at laughter.

God, she's gonna teach this baby so many swears.]

Could be. Still, most of their names seem like dumb puns. Like, my ostrich is called a "Doduo". Someone obviously just mashed the words "dodo" and "duo" together to describe a two-headed flightless bird. And the fawn I got is apparently a "Deerling"- the "ling" part probably comes from "yearling", so it's just. Deer and yearling.

But... Yeah, thinking about it, when i was in Diglett Tunnel, it sure sounded like a lot of them were repeating the word "dig". Started to drive me nuts. And a few other Pokemon I've seen did kinda sound like they were parroting their names.

[Venkman thinks for a moment, tapping his chin.]

What if people came up with these creatures their species names centuries ago, and... over time certain ones learned how to mimic the sound of their species name in vocalizations? And that was a trait that got passed down to certain ones, while others still kept more animalistic vocalizations? How plausible is that?