The study of acoustic signals and the supposed spoken language of the dolphins

Abstract

This paper continues studies in the problem of animal language by registering acoustic signals from two quasi-stationary Black Sea bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) using a two-channel system in the frequency band up to 220 kHz with a dynamic range of 81 dB. The packs of mutually noncoherent pulses (NP) generated by the dolphins were matched to the animals. The waveforms and the spectra of these pulses changed from one pulse to another in each pack. In this connection, a suggestion was made that the set of spectral components of each pulse is a ‘word’ of the dolphin's spoken language and a pack of NPs is a sentence. The paper studied the NP peculiarities in the context of the characteristics of the human spoken language.