Researchers at the University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley are trying to understand the origins of the first words that people speak as babies.

They are showing interest in the Green Rumped Parrotletts from Venezuela and the first noises they make from a very young age.

UTRGV Biology Professor Dr. Karl Berg has been studying the noises they make before they're able to speak, putting microphones and cameras in their nests.

He shows a pair making noises to each other just a few days before they fly the nest and live on their own.

Baby parrots don't speak, but they do "babble."

"Babbling on the other hand does not have a clear functional use, and that's where it gets really interesting," Berg said.

Many believe babbling is what young birds do to practice language, and Berg agrees. It's similar to human babies.

"Sometimes you'll get a baby just sitting in the crib at night, and they're just going through this gibberish. It makes no sense, and there's no specific context. It's not that they're hungry or scared or wanting to interact with another individual, they're just sort of running through the repertoire of sounds that they're able to make," Berg said. "There's ties to human genetics."

By studying birds, Berg has been able to do experiments with the birds that can help understand people.

He's found evidence that the higher the stress levels of the young birds, the more they babble. He thinks that could be similar to how babies develop.

"Maybe that's going to tell us something about the origins of humans' most celebrated behavior," Berg said.

Speaking words or just babbling, it's something that humans and birds have in common.