So long and thanks for all the fish

Language is a big part of human communication. We speak to each other; write to each other about what is going on in our life all the time. And sometimes we get a chance to learn different language other than the mother tongue and that somehow broaden our range of communication. The first step of evolution of human language that made everything possible is thought that humans being capable of imitating sound and adding it to their repertoire. This process is known as vocal learning.

A lot of animals communicate acoustically and mainly they use innate repertoire of sounds. But there are some other animals that are capable of vocal learning. 

And there is a research that Killer whales are capable of cross-species vocal learning, published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

Researchers found that after Killer whales were kept in the same tank with Bottlenose dolphins, their sound pattern has changed significantly. Killer whales’ vocalization mainly has three patterns: pulsed calls as a dominant pattern, clicks and whistles. However, researchers found out that their pattern started to mimic that of Bottlenose dolphins after they became tank mates. They were emitting far more clicks and whistles than the usual Killer whales that only have been with other Killer whales. According to the research, they consider that the Killer whales tend to match the vocalization with other social associates. Similarly, There has been a study over bottlenose dolphins mimicking humpback whale song in 2011. 

So if the Killer whales are capable of vocal learning, and they are also capable cross-species vocal learning, would it feel like they’re learning second language? After I came to America 3 years ago, I have confronted interesting situation with languages. First friends that I met here, all most all of them are Chinese and I was often stuck with a lot of people only speaking Chinese and after a while, I was guessing what they were talking about and slowly started to mimic them. That happened to other friend who is Bhutanese, stuck with bunch of Koreans. However, as geographical reasons, there are some similarities between those Asian languages. My question is, pretend as if we’re in Killer whales’ situation, how long does it take to understand meaning of what the other person is saying without any means to explain other than the language itself that you don’t understand? What if the other language is not from your cultural boundary? 

So I would like to present a short video of people who uses different language trying to have conversation and see if they can actually communicate.

There will be two people participating in each conversation: person A(wearing dolphin head) and B(wearing orca head). There would be few topics written on the paper that A chooses randomly. Then A will start the conversation with the short sentence that is related to the topic. Then B will try to answer and continue conversation as he or she guesses what it means. During this whole process, A and B will strictly use their own language and there will not be any topic that they can directly explain with body language. Both A and B should not be able to speak each other’s languages.

So in the video, there is case A and B. In case A, Meimei(dolphin) speaks Cantonese and Ray(killer whale) speaks Shanghainese. Usually they talk to each other in Mandarin or English. Cantonese and Shanghainese are both dialects of Chinese. However, Chinese dialects are famous for being unintelligible even among Chinese people. Killer whale is called Killer ‘Whale’ but it is kind of a dolphin. It is oceanic dolphin; Delphinidae but are commonly called whales rather than dolphins. So would it be possible that their languages are like unintelligible dialects? 

In case B, Dechen(dolphin) speaks Bhutanese and Sam(killer whale) speaks Cantonese. Usually they talk to each other only in English. Bhutanese and Cantonese both came from Sino-Tibetian languages. However, they are two completely different languages, just like Icelandic and German belong to Germanic language family but they are two different languages. So the question was that Killer whales and Dolphins are both Cetaceans. But the probably use completely different languages?

If I could have more time and funding to do this project, I will probably try to find more diversity in languages. I wish it would move on to two people who are from totally different cultural area. For example, A would be speaking Korean or Chinese and B would be speaking French or English. Considering that it is almost impossible to find someone who is not entirely exposed to English here in US, if English speaker participates in this project, he or she is likely to be person B, who has to guess during the conversation. 

This project has its point of trying to put us in those Killer whales’ position where they have taught who to speak bottlenose dolphins when they have no textbooks or dictionary to figure out what they are talking about.

Annotated Bibliography

Whitney B. Musser, Ann E. Browles, Dawn M. Grebner, Jessica L. Carance, Differences in acoustic features of vocalization produced by killer whales cross-socialized with bottlenose dolphins, print,  The Journal of Acoustic Society of America, Aug, 2014

Original research that the project is based on

Gabriella Cowperthwaite, Blacfish, Documentary film, Jul, 2013
Great film by itself, and it rises question about the SeaWorld aquarium, which is related to one of the researchers mentioned before. 

James Vincent, Scientists working on human-to-dolphin translator report first succesful interaction, Web, Apr, 2014

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-working-on-humantodolphin-translator-report-first-successful-interaction-9228552.html

Introduction to scientific research of Human-Dolphin cross species communication

Denise Herzing, TED:Could we speak language of dolphin?, Web, TED TALK, Feb, 2013

http://on.ted.com/Herzing

Dr Herzing, introducing 'dolphin translator' and further research on Human-Dolphin cross-species communication

Denise Herzing, Chat : Is it a dolphin translator or an interface?, Web, Mar, 2014

http://www.wilddolphinproject.org/uncategorized/chat-is-it-a-dolphin-translator-or-an-interface/

Dr Herzing 's article on more information about the dolphin translator, CHAT

David Kirby, Captive Killer Whales Learn to Speak Dophin, Web, Oct, 2014

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/10/09/killer-whale-learns-speak-dolphin

Briefly introduce the research and touches over issues along with the aquarium situation for dolphins and killer whales

Manon Verchot, Killer Whale learn to speak dolphin-with an accent, Web, Oct, 2014

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/killer-whales-learn-speak-dolphin.html

Briefly introduce the research and covers specific traits of the vocal patterns.

Dorothee Kremers, Margarita Briseno Jaramaillo, Martin Boye, Albaln Lemasson and Martine Hausberger, Do dolphins rehearse show-stimuli when at rest? Delayed matching auditory memory, Dec, 2011

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00386/full

Dolphins mimicking whale sound. More information about vocal learing

Justine Alford, Captive Orcas Learn to speak Dolphin, Web, Oct 2014

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/captive-orcas-learn-communicate-their-dolphin-mates

Briefly goes over the research

Seriously Science, Killer whales can learn to speak 'dolphin', Web, Nov, 2013

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/seriouslyscience/2014/11/06/killer-whales-can-learn-speak-dolphin/

Discussion among people goes on below the article.

List of varieties of Chinese Dialects, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_varieties_of_Chinese

More information on the languages mentioned in the project

Sino-tibetan languages family, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages

More information on the languages mentioned in the project

Isabella Steger, Do you Dare try the Devil-Language? China's 10 Hardest Dialects, Web, May 2013

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/21/do-you-dare-try-the-devil-language-chinas-10-hardest-dialects/

More information on the languages mentioned in the project

Dzongkha(Bhutanese), Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzongkha

More information on the language mentioned in the project

Cantonese, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese

More information on the language mentioned in the project

Shanghainese, Wikipedia, Apr, 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghainese

More information on the language mentioned in the project