Dr. Laela Sayigh

There's a lot of really cool things about them.

They make a lot of shared non-signatures.

So I've now discovered quite a few non-signature whistle types that we've seen made by multiple dolphins.

Wow.

And so we're trying to do some playback experiments now to understand how those non-signature whistles function.

Yeah, that one had a, you can tell, like a sort of a flat component at the end that is very striking and very unusual in dolphin whistles.

So that was one of the first ones that I discovered.

It really stood out to me because it was so different sounding from what their signature whistles usually sound like.

I don't use the term language when talking about their communication.

I mean, just because it's so tied with our own language.

I mean, that's how we use the term.

And our own language has a lot of features that...

you know, how we define our language syntax and things like that.

So I guess I don't necessarily think it's that useful to try to find human language features in their communication.

I guess I would be kind of surprised if they were there to any great extent because, you know, we have been distinct from them evolutionarily for more than 50 million years, you know, so... But I mean, it is a form of communication with shared...

Shared sound.

For sure.

Well, no, absolutely communication.

No doubt communication.

And that's what I like to call it.