Scientists at the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) have developed a prototype dolphin translator called Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT).
The translator is made to be used underwater and was created in order to understand the whistles of dolphins, according to Daily Mail. Now, scientists are claiming that the translator has translated a dolphin "word."
Dr. Denise Herzing, founder of the WDP, said she heard one of the dolphins "say" the word "sargassum," a kind of seaweed, when she was swimming in the Caribbean in August 2013. It was the first time that CHAT was able to translate a whistle from the animal.
"I was like whoa! We have a match. I was stunned," Herzing said.
Dolphins are considered one of the most intelligent animals on Earth, CNET reported. Humans have been communicating with dolphins for a long time, but only on a limited level. Dolphins can respond to commands and recognize symbols, but scientists have not been able to figure out how much of what the animals learn is by habit or if they actually understand what humans are saying or doing.
Herzing used the prototype while swimming with a pod of dolphins she has been studying for the past 25 years. The sounds that the whistles make are very different than the sounds that dolphins make naturally. The scientists have not figured out yet if the dolphin said 'sargassum' because it saw seaweed and was trying to talk to another dolphin, Daily Mail reported.
The scientists wish for the dolphins to keep using the whistles so that it becomes easier to translate their natural language, thus making it easier to understand their behavior and how they communicate. Research was short due to the pod moving on, but the team still made progress with their work. Thad Starner, creator of CHAT at the Georgia Institute of Technology, developed algorithms to find patterns in dolphin whistles that people might not see. They were able to identify some characteristic noises that related to a mother and her calf communicating, CNET reported.
A success with CHAT will open up the opportunity for two-way communication between humans and dolphins. Herzing and Starner will present their research at a speech and signal processing conference in Florence, Italy in May.
