Dolphins' Language Resembles Human Communication

Dolphins are capable of “highly developed spoken language” which resembles human communication. While it has long been acknowledged dolphins are of high intelligence and can communicate with a larger pack, their ability to converse with each other individually has been less understood. But researchers at the Karadag Nature Reserve, Feodosia, Crimea believe the pulses, clicks and whistles – of up to five “words” – made by dolphins are listened to fully by another before a response is made. Essentially, this exchange resembles a conversation between two people. Each pulse produced by a dolphin is different from another in its time span and the frequencies it emits.

In this regard, we can assume that each pulse represents a phoneme or a word of the dolphin’s spoken language. However the dolphin’s speech unfortunately lies beyond the time and frequency characteristics of the human hearing, and is thus available to humans. The study was conducted on two adult bottlenose captive dolphins, a male and a female. The pair has lived for 20 years in a swimming pool. Without food rewards, a special audio system recorded the exchanges between the dolphins.

The noises emitted were of a different pattern than those produced in a pod. The analysis of numerous pulses registered in our experiments showed that the dolphins took turns in producing pulse packs 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.