In The News: Dolphins have names

[rabid1st]

Scientists call them "signature whistles." Just as they call the incredibly ordered and organizationally structured cetacean language, "a complex and sophisticated communication system," because, well, you wouldn't want to correctly identify a non-human intelligence and look like a fool to your colleagues, right? Plus, you couldn't justify keeping them as slaves and slaughtering their brethren if you recognized them as equals, could you?

http://www.care2.com/causes/dolphins-have-their-own-names-for-each-other.html

Comments

[astitchintime-9.livejournal.com]

I have no doubt that this aspect of animal interactions is not limited to dolphins.

We assume that animals recognize when humans give them names, therefore, by extension, why should we be surprised at the concept that they have names for one another?

As to animal intelligence and sentience: yes.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

Exactly, if they didn't have the capacity for recognizing names, it wouldn't matter what we said to them, they wouldn't recognize it as a name. However, many animals assign meaning to their names and will come or look up when you use that particular word. It seems like a no-brainer to understand that, but I assure you animal behaviorists fought the concept for a long time. And, as we can see, even now, they don't want to acknowledge that animals might have their OWN names.