Dolphins, Names and Language

Dolphins name their young and identify each other by those names. But don't eliminate the barrier between humans and animals just yet. They do not necessarily have a real language system, according to Laela Sayigh, who was involved in the study:

She stopped short of saying dolphins might have a human-like language.

"I tend to shy away from using the word 'language' myself, because it's such a loaded term," Sayigh said. "I still really feel strongly that there is no evidence for something like our language. (Dolphins) have got the cognitive skills at least to have referential signals."

Often, a term like "language" or "culture" gets used in the biological sense when referring to animals in a way that misleads people. I once got all excited about a book called The Ape and the Sushi Master, because I had heard the book argued that some animals have "culture." Well, it was major let-down when I realized "culture" meant so little in zoology--largely just the ability to teach the young, through example, how to perform survival-related tasks. At some point, these words are reduced to so little that animals having "language" and "culture" no longer seems incompatible with them being like machines. Computers have no consciousness, yet they have some language, at least in terms of code. Couldn't there be a robot that observed and imitated?