Dolphin Research Conlang

I found this news story about researchers using a conlang to communicate
with dolphins. The whole story may be found at

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,41705,00.html

and the project homepage is at

http://www.earthtrust.org/delphis.html

--David

from WiredNews:

Researchers at Sea Life Park Hawaii are working on a way to get humans
even closer to our flipper friends: They're devising a common language
of dolphin-like whistles.

Already, dolphins recognize sounds for four words: ball, disk, leaf and
barrel -- all of which are objects that the dolphins being tested are
familiar with.

"We have developed a whistle word language -- words represented as
whistles," said Dr. Ken Marten, director of the dolphin research
initiative Project Delphis.

Marten's whistle language does not replicate the dolphin's language;
rather, it is an artificial approximation of it.