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Dolphins Recorded Having a Conversation For The First Time (telegraph.co.uk)
For the first time Russian researchers have recorded a conversation between two dolphins -- Yasha and Yana -- who were talking to each other in a pool. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes The Telegraph:
Scientists developed an underwater microphone which could distinguish the animals' different "voices" [and] 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...
"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... 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."
The dolphins listened to an entire "sentence" before replying, according to the article, which points out that dolphin brains are larger and more complex than the brains of humans.
"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... 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."
The dolphins listened to an entire "sentence" before replying, according to the article, which points out that dolphin brains are larger and more complex than the brains of humans.
Dolphin 1: I know where we can get some really good fish.
Dolphin 2: Sounds great! Why don't I go get Doris, you talk to Sheila, and we can go there and make a night of it?
Dolphin 1: Works for me. Wanna grab some mackerel afterward?
Dolphin 2: It's like you read my mind!
Dolphin 1: Hey, who's the pink dork with the microphone?
#DeleteChrome
After deciphering, they will find out that they were saying:
- I think they are on to us.
- Yes, perhaps it's time to search for another planet.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
There are a lot of language using animals which are not yet recognized. Humanity is just getting to the point of seeing that there are other intelligences here on Earth.
We have livestock working dogs. They exhibit a lot of language and string up to six words together, use adjectives and have names for each other, us and objects. We have about 300 words we use with them, both from us to them and them to us as well as what they use to each other. It is clear they have a lot more words they use with each other that I don't understand so their language is considerably more extensive than the smattering of pidgin we share.
Realize I'm not talking about Fluffy, a typical domesticated dog that was raised as a singleton isolated from other dog culture. These are livestock large working dogs that are far closer to their wolf ancestors and they grow up in a culturally rich environment of a many generational pack on our farm. They work for a living and know hundreds of individual livestock animals that they tend to on the farm.
Back in the 70's and 80's, people recorded dolphin vocalizations, and identified the equivalent of human phonemes, basically just different sound patterns that would occur repeatedly. By collecting a lot of data, and counting up the occurrences of distinct phonemes, they were able to show a phoneme frequency that matches the exact same patterns as human speech (frequency here meaning how often a phoneme occurs, not the frequency of the sound waves).
For instance, "the" occurred 6 times in the paragraph above, "and" occurs 3 times, and words like "vocalization" occur once - far less often. All human languages have this distribution where a small quantity of words makes up the bulk of common conversation, whereas things like bird calls or other vocalizations from less intelligent species follow a more flat distribution.
The point being, we've known for a long time that dolphins communicate using something very similar to human speech. This is pretty neat progress, but IMO it's pretty disheartening that after several decades we're still not anywhere near understanding their language. If we can't figure out how to communicate with fellow mammals sharing a common lineage, it really challenges the common sci-fi trope of having any kind of meaningful discourse with a creature from the other side of the galaxy.
Conclusion: Dolphins don't actually want to talk to us.
Hell, I don't want to talk to humans, but the Dolphin /. is just endless threads about swimming, fish, waves, bubbles, etc...
And don't get me started on their podcasts.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
They live in 3D, Mr Flatscreen. It's 3D gestures all the way down. Using wavefronts. The echoes of which they can reconstruct into 3D maps on the fly. Er, swim.
Cower before your superiors. Oh, wait, you can't -- no flippers. Also too slow. Limited range of hearing. Weak. Small.
Wow, you just suck.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You already showed how they do it: the parents/elder shows how to do it and the kids learn. That is also a form of communication but doesn't give evidence for any kind of conversations as such.
I've always been told it depends on where the period belongs. That is to say if you're quoting an entire sentence (e.g. the end of the quote is the end of a sentence) the period goes inside to denote this, otherwise it goes outside. According to this source, placing the period inside the quote regardless of logic is an "American" thing; though I'm American and follow the logic provided there.
Literally every other source I bothered to look at (all American style guides) say the period (or comma) goes inside the quote unless there is a parenthetical citation, in which case it follows that. After a dozen or so sources, I gave up on trying to find one representing a country other than the US; if anyone can provide me one or more, that would be greatly appreciated.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Actually, not really. Among most species bigger brains = bigger neurons, so that the number of neurons increases far more slowly than you would expect. One of the major evolutionary leaps among primates was that neuron size remains relatively constant across species, so that larger primates have dramatically more neurons than their smaller cousins.
Which is largely responsible for the fact that, despite the fact that dolphins have larger brains than us, they have only ~20 blllion neurons, compared to our ~100 billion.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
How's this?
From http://www.thepunctuationguide...
Pain is merely failure leaving the body