Ben Ambridge checks in on recent research:
Previously it was thought that the magical ability which non-human species lack is the understanding that words can be put together in different orders to express different meanings. There’s a saying in journalism: Dog Bites Man isn’t news, but Man Bites Dog is. It makes sense only because we understand that the order of the words tells us who’s doing the biting and who’s getting bitten.
However, a few species have actually passed this test. On the comprehension front, we have Phoenix and Akeakamai, two dolphins studied at the University of Hawaii, who were taught a language in which the ‘words’ were different whistle sounds played by the trainer (and chosen to approximate dolphins’ own calls). The dolphins understood that, for example, "put the pipe on the hoop" and "put the hoop on the pipe" meant different things and were able to respond accordingly, even when the exact sentence hadn’t been presented before.
Ed Yong explains the above video:
It sounds like a drunkard playing a kazoo, but it’s actually the call of a beluga (a white whale) called NOC. Belugas don’t normally sound like that; instead, NOC’s handlers think that his bizarre sounds were an attempt at mimicking the sounds of human speech.
(Hat tip: 3QD)
The Dish 