The secret language of dolphins and whales...
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The Onion makes fun of weird researchers
- No More Buzzwords!
Britain's Local Government association is warning that "buzzwords" like "synergy" and "coterminosity" only confuse people and beaurocrats are being asked to use only "the King's English" (CNN reports)
Scientists believe that dolphins are among the smartest creatures on earth, next to humans.
There are people out there trying to decipher the language of dolphins and whales.
They sit on a boat out in the middle of the ocean with listening devices and data collecting devices and look for repeating sounds, and responses to sounds made by the whales and/or the dolphins.
I don't know how they intend to decode the language (unless they have a whale/dolphin to English dictionary).
But if I had to guess, I would say they try to use some sort of decryption technology or something (like Morse code decoder...lol).
But what if dolphins and whales, like humans do, change their language over time? What if they intentionally switch it up some times when they don't want to be understood? Would one family of dolphins speak the same language as all other families of dolphins?...I doubt it.
That would probably make life a little difficult for these researchers.
I guess, that's why you hear that these types of researchers spend upwards of 20 years doing their "research" before they finally come home and actually publish something.
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Pl add a hub when u learn more regd. this subject !
Actually researchers have compared humpback whale songs from different geographic areas and found some songs are the same while others share similarities but are different. These researchers have also shown that humpback whales have some of the same complexities in their language that we have but not as many or the same. Therefore it is believed that although they communicate it is unlikely that they have detailed conversations.
This is an interesting topic..!
Lizybeth, I'm impressed with ur knowledge of the topic.
Thanks for the input!
very interesting reading
I think dolphins might just be a bit smarter than we are. They were probably a peaceful, more highly evolved mammalian species that decided we were too dangerous a creature with which to share the surface of the planet. They headed back to the sea hoping that we would just stay up on the land and leave them alone. Alas, they were not quite smart enough.
The way things are going however, the dolphins may have a better chance at survival than do we. I think there might possibly be better odds for some creatures of the oceans to survive the coming extinction event than for those of the land. After all, the sea is where life began on Earth.
Dolphins are cool. Whales are all right and all but Dolphins rock.
Interesting hub. Of course all language interpretation started by studying sounds (and in the human case matching words to actions), grammar of course came much later. An interesting legend is that dolphins were highly evolved land creatures. Their brains are significantly larger than ours. They then opted to return to the sea at about the time Atlantis dissapeared, opting to sing rathr than converse.
jim1307 says:
2 years ago
Dolphins and whales are smart creatures. They've been around longer than us and have therefore probably got a better understanding of our language, and us, than we have of theirs. In all the years of research all humans have ever began to understand is whalesong and clicks, and how far that sound travels underwater. I bet they learnt quickly thats its best to keep their distance from killer hunter humans out their in their domains - wouldn't you?