Dolphins recorded conversing 'just like two people' for first time

Two dolphins have been recorded having a conversation for the first time after scientists developed an underwater microphone which could distinguish the animals' different "voices".

Researchers have known for decades that the mammals had an advanced form of communication, using distinctive clicks and whistles to show they are excited, happy, stressed or separated from the group.

But scientists have now shown that dolphins alter the volume and frequency of pulsed clicks to form individual "words" which they string together into sentences in much the same way that humans speak.

Researchers at the Karadag Nature Reserve, in Feodosia, Ukraine, recorded two Black Sea bottlenose dolphins, called Yasha and Yana, talking to each other in a pool. They found that each dolphin would listen to a sentence of pulses without interruption, before replying.

Lead researcher Dr Vyacheslav Ryabov, said: "Essentially, this exchange resembles a conversation between two people.

"Each pulse that is produced by dolphins is different from another by its appearance in the time domain and by the set of spectral components in the frequency domain.

"In this regard, we can assume that each pulse represents a phoneme or a word of the dolphin's spoken language.

"The analysis of numerous pulses registered in our experiments showed that the dolphins took turns in producing [sentences] and did not interrupt each other, which gives reason to believe that each of the dolphins listened to the other's pulses before producing its own.

"This language exhibits all the design features present in the human spoken language, this indicates a high level of intelligence and consciousness in dolphins, and their language can be ostensibly considered a highly developed spoken language, akin to the human language."

Dolphins have possessed brains that are larger and more complex than human ones for more than 25 million years.

The researchers found that Yasha and Yana could create sentences of up to five "words", but the scientists still do not understand the content.

Dr Ryabov said it was now beyond doubt that dolphins speak their own language and it is time to start studying how to communicate directly with them.

"Humans must take the first step to establish relationships with the first intelligent inhabitants of the planet Earth by creating devices capable of overcoming the barriers that stand in the way of using languages and in the way of communications between dolphins and people," he added.

Scientists already knew that dolphins use more than one thousand different types of whistle depending on social context but it was unclear if they could communicate directly with each other, one to one.

In 2007 Australian scientists identified specific whistles, which were interpreted to mean 'I'm here, where is everyone', 'Hurry up' and 'There's food over here'.

Dolphins are also thought to have developed a type of sign language in which they communicate with their flippers.

A group of scientists in Florida earlier this year showed that the communication between dolphins increases when they are undertaking a difficult task - in one case removing the lid from a canister - as if they were discussing the best solution.

The new research was published in the journal Mathematics and Physics.

What dolphins are talking about

Russian researchers at the Karadag Nature reserve say they have recorded a conversation between dolphins - specifically a pair of bottlenoses called Yasha and Yana - using a special underwater microphone that can distinguish between the animals' voices properly for the first time. This has revealed that they talk to each other just like humans do.

Apparently the animals alter the frequency and volume of their clicks to form little clumps of sounds like words and wait til the other has finished delivering stretches of said clumps (sentences, one might almost reckon) before embarking on their own.

Finally, we will be able to start communicating with our cretaceous cousins! Are they, as has long been claimed, Just Like Us? Imagine:

Yana: Where's my wallet? My dolphin wallet?

Yasha: I don't know. Am I the Keeper of All Things? Have you looked?

Yana: Where?

Yasha [rolls eyes]: Where?! In the water. Under the other bit of water. Behind the water. It'll be somewhere in the water.

Yana: Oh yes, here it is. What are we having for dinner?

Yasha: The Distended-Blowholes have invited us over to their pod for a bait ball.

Yana: I don't want to go.

Yasha: You never want to go anywhere.

Yana: All he talks about is his new fin-maintenance regime and all she talks about are the twins.

Yasha: I know. And how she lost the post-baby blubber so quickly. I keep wanting to say to her 'We're all streamlined, love! It's not cutting back on the cod that's done it! It's 25 million years of sub-aquatic evolution!'

Yana: Let's not go.

Yasha: We're going.

Perhaps - and looking at those constant vacant smiles, one has to entertain the possibility - Yana and Yasha are the Valley girls of the sea. Then again, are they - as one feels all marine life must be, alone with their thoughts in the vasty deeps - bleakly brooding philosophers at heart?

Yasha: "What did you do today, Yana?"

Yana: "Swam."

Yasha: "What will you do tomorrow, Yana?"

Yana: "Swim better."

Yasha: "They say that if sharks stop swimming they die, Yana."

Yana: "Is a life in which one cannot stop swimming also a kind of death, Yasha?"

Dolphins use pulsed clicks in the same way that humans use words, scientists have found. Jeff Rotman

(China Daily 10/08/2016 page23)