How Dolphins Talk

The basic sound is the whistle, and each one has its own name. But it also indicates warning signals and specific questions.

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THE DOLPHIN IS INTELLIGENT

Dolphin language is fascinating and increasingly less mysterious as scientific research continues to decipher it and explore its similarities to human speech.

Dolphins have a timbre to their voices, a duration of each word, a sound spectrum and a frequency, with the heart of dolphin language being the whistle. Each dolphin has its own whistle, that is, its name and therefore its identity.

Furthermore i Dolphins They are, unlike men, very polite: they do not shout, they do not overlap their voices and they do not intervene before the other has finished speaking, as confirmed by a detailed Research of the Russian Institute Karadag Nature Reserve. One of the strongest scientific pieces of evidence demonstrating how dolphins combine high intelligence with excellent language skills.

The research focused on two dolphins, Yasha and Yana, as they are called. These Black Sea cetaceans have shown that dolphin language is very similar to that of humans. Like us, they listen first and then respond. They raise their voices when they have something to emphasize. They connect words to form sentences.

Dolphin communication serves several purposes, including the defense of the species and, above all, the protection of females. Male bottlenose dolphins, among the most widespread dolphins in the world, gather in groups of four or five, exchange useful information, and warn each other of danger to females. How do they do it? With their alphabet, a series of clicks, repeated from two to 49 times, which form their sentences. Furthermore, each dolphin has its own "whistle," which functions like a human's name, distinguishing each individual from the next.

And it is precisely through the study of dolphin whistle communication that a recent, important development has emerged regarding the meaning of these sounds. The research group led by Laela Sayigh of the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute, in Florida, he carried out a study with which he won 100 thousand dollars put up for grabs by the Coller Dolittle Challenge for best research on animal communication. American scholars, with their Research, They discovered two very precise meanings for two types of whistles. The first is a sort of alarm signal, with which a Delfino It warns the others and invites them to move away due to the presence of danger. Secondly, it's almost a question, from a dolphin, asking for an explanation when faced with something unfamiliar. Two universal whistles, we could say, in the language of dolphins, whose vocabulary is becoming increasingly rich and known to us humans..

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