Letter: Communication problems in the dolphinarium

WE ARE grateful that your paper has given space to our current problems (Letters, 30 May) with respect to breaking through the human language barrier.

For some months now, as you report in 'The Dr Doolittle of Kewala Basin' (Review, 23 May), we have been trying to teach these affectionate, furless mammals to speak to us in our own language, but so far have only managed to educate them to communicate by means of a series of symbols representing words in their language.

This is very disappointing. It seems to have so far eluded the imagination of these enterprising creatures that, however helpful we try to be to them, true understanding between our species will only come about when they have learnt to speak our language to the same degree as we now understand theirs. Since their brains are more or less the same size as ours they shouldn't have much difficulty in achieving what they expect us to achieve, only in reverse.

Dolphins Phoenix and Aki

Hawaii