[cetalingua]

Speaking of dolphins (and whales for that matter), there is a reason why it has been so hard to not just "communicate" with them but to even understand the function and the meaning of a number of calls they make.It appears that it is very hard for a human mind to understand a consciousness so different from our own. We are visual species, and even though our language is acoustic, it reflects our nature as visual species. Dolphins' primary modality is sound, so if they have any communication system, it will reflect that. Will we be able to crack their code someday? Hopefully, the answer is yes.

[stuntkite]

We know a lot about the language of large ocean mammals but it's just not as one to one with how we would translate it. The ocean is basically a noisy internet with their calls like alien packets that are mixed with a complex natural langue. Elephants have a similar thing. They make long sub-bass vocalizations that they can feel for miles with their feet.

As far as I know, prarie dog [0] is the closest we've come to a rosetta stone for another species. We can translate things like "brown fox north" and such.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/132650631/new-language-discov...

[cetalingua]

>We know a lot about the language of large ocean mammals but it's just not as one to one with how we would translate it.

Well, not exactly.In fact, we still know surprisingly little. For the humpback song, one of the most studied topics up to date, there is still a major disagreement if it is a reproductive display or something else.Humpbacks make tons of other sounds as well, those have not been studied as much as their songs. For bottlenose dolphins, the most studied species, we sort of know the function of the signature whistles (again, not everyone agrees), but know very little about the function/meaning of other whistles and other sounds like burst pulses or LFNs.Echolocation has been studied a lot, still, we do not know if it is used in communication in any way.