Is Anyone Listening?: What Animals Are Saying to Each Other and to Us

From a leading researcher on dolphin communication, a deep dive into the many ways animal species communicate with their kin, their neighboring species, and humans. Is Anyone Listening? connects research on dolphin communication to findings from Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Dian Fossey on mountain gorillas, Cynthia Moss on African elephants, and others driving today’s exploration of possible animal languages. Although humans have long attempted to crack animal communication codes, only now are advanced machine-learning tools available to help them. As Herzing reveals, researchers are finding fascinating hints of language in non-human species, including linguistic structures, vowel equivalents, and complex repeated sequences. By looking at the many ways animals use and manipulate signals, readers see that humans have only just begun to appreciate the diversity of animal intelligence and the complicated and subtle aspects of animal communication. Considering dolphins and other non-human animals as colleagues instead of research subjects, Herzing asks readers to meet animals as both speakers and listeners, as mutually curious beings, and to listen to what they are saying.