A common language?

PUERTO RICO: Many people working globally believe that “international English” or “world English”, a simplified version of the language, would help them to communicate more effectively. It seems that dolphins have already learned how to modify their communication for other species.

Biologist Dr. Laura May-Collado of the University of Puerto Rico has been studying dolphins in the waters near Costa Rica. The bottlenose dolphin and Guyana dolphin are distantly related species, and they emit different sounds. The bottlenose dolphins make long, low-frequency calls. In contrast, the Guyana dolphins use high-pitched whistles to communicate.

When the two species of dolphin come together, each changes the noises they make to create a “language” that is somewhere in-between the range of sounds commonly used by their respective species. "I was surprised by these findings, as I was expecting both species to emphasize, perhaps exaggerate, their species-specific signals," May-Collado told the BBC. "This was a very exciting discovery."

Two species of dolphin that come together change the sounds they make to create a common “language”. 

May-Collado adds that there are several other possible explanations for the change in dolphin speech. The Guyana dolphins may be trying to imitate the noises made by the larger bottlenose dolphins to avoid being threatened by them. They may also simply be emitting sounds that show they are stressed. She published the findings in Ethology, the international journal of behavioural biology.