I used to think they couldn't talk, too. So when my first (male) lovie didn't talk I thought nothing of it. But my second lovie, a hen, started using the vocal quality that my budgies used when they talked. I told the vet it sounded almost like she was trying to talk. He said, "She probably is." "But lovebirds can't talk!" I said. "Yes they can." he replied. "They just can't talk very
well"
Since then I've "met" a number of talking lovies...
all of them hens, and none with a large vocabulary. Buddy, my first talking lovie, had only one word in human, but she did make budgie noises when I got her (should have been my first clue, doh) and learned to peep like my canary. (The canary also learned to give the lovies' "Come and let me out of my cage
now!" squawk) so I said Buddy was multilingual.
But she didn't learn her word (also "baby") until about 3 years old. Johari is only 3 monthsold & has been out of QT less than a month. I didn't think I'd be lucky enough to have 2 out of my 3 lovies turn out to be talkers. So now I have a GCC that talks, a Fischer's Lovebird who talks and does GCC impressions (started that yesterday) and a canary that does lovebird impressions. I'm a pediatric speech therapist, so I guess you could say this is a
very vocal flock!