A dolphin conversation between two of the mammals was recorded and translated for the first time by Russian researchers who created an underwater microphone that helped them detect the distinctive communication patterns of their "voices."
Researchers were able to point out how dolphins used volume and frequency of pulsed clicks to create "words" and "sentences" much the way humans do to express excitement, happiness, and stress, said The Telegraph.
Karadag Nature Reserve researchers in Feodosia, Russia, made the discovery which was published in the journal Mathematics and Physics, said the Daily Mail.
"Essentially, this exchange resembles a conversation between two people," lead researcher Vyacheslav Ryabov, told The Telegraph. "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."
The Mathematics and Physics study said the acoustic signals produced by the dolphins named Yana and Yasha were recorded with no special training and without any food reward for them. The study said the signals were recorded by a two-channel system, "which detected the moment when each signal arrived at the hydrophone of its channel."
"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," Ryabov told The Telegrpah.
Ryabov said the recording is the best evidence yet that dolphins speak their own language, possibly allowing human one day 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," said Ryabov.
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