Toothed cetaceans such as dolphins hear and communicate between roughly 5khz to sometimes up to 160khz or more. On the other hand, humans can only hear up to 20khz. This means that communication between humans and cetaceans is in practice extremely difficult if not impossible because of this gap, or at least a pipedream without an eager will from both ends to close that gap.
The idea brought by Russell Hockins is to create a radio-like device capable of taking what we say between the 0-20khz range, and extrapolating it at a higher frequency with a similar range, for instance between 60khz and 80khz, 70khz and 90khz, and so on, depending on the preferences of the other end. This also means that the interlocutors - which usually communicate in quite large ranges, need to adapt their speech to the quite narrow range used by humans before speaking. This idea wasn’t initially created by Russel but rather took the principle from previous existing devices or attempts, particularly radio like systems used by the military for communication between divers or submarines, such as the UQC.
It is possible if not probable that cetaceans, in order to accomplish this feat, will simultaneously speak and emit a lower frequency sound which will effectively mix both, generating something which could be heard in our range. Russel hypothesize that, in the long term, cetaceans may learn how to use such a process in order to effectively be understandable without the use of a device, making the last obsolete.
The idea could also be extrapolated to elephant and baleen whales, which on the other hand communicate with infrasounds, meaning far below our audible range and on the hertz level. This would involve a simpler process of frequency dropping, meaning that whatever will say will be and sound way lower to them, and everything they say could be heightened to have a higher pitch similar to how we speak. This would involve bigger devices with subwoofer-like megaphones and a microphone capable of receiving extremely low frequencies. In their case, though, devices may be necessary at all times, as they cannot mix sounds like toothed cetaceans can. On the other hand, two cases of captive elephants ; one in Kazakhstan and another in South Korea ; suggest that the last may learn to speak at our level by blowing in their trunk and releasing the trapped air as a modulated sound, effectively imitating our speech.
The idea brought by Russell Hockins is to create a radio-like device capable of taking what we say between the 0-20khz range, and extrapolating it at a higher frequency with a similar range, for instance between 60khz and 80khz, 70khz and 90khz, and so on, depending on the preferences of the other end. This also means that the interlocutors - which usually communicate in quite large ranges, need to adapt their speech to the quite narrow range used by humans before speaking. This idea wasn’t initially created by Russel but rather took the principle from previous existing devices or attempts, particularly radio like systems used by the military for communication between divers or submarines, such as the UQC.
It is possible if not probable that cetaceans, in order to accomplish this feat, will simultaneously speak and emit a lower frequency sound which will effectively mix both, generating something which could be heard in our range. Russel hypothesize that, in the long term, cetaceans may learn how to use such a process in order to effectively be understandable without the use of a device, making the last obsolete.
The idea could also be extrapolated to elephant and baleen whales, which on the other hand communicate with infrasounds, meaning far below our audible range and on the hertz level. This would involve a simpler process of frequency dropping, meaning that whatever will say will be and sound way lower to them, and everything they say could be heightened to have a higher pitch similar to how we speak. This would involve bigger devices with subwoofer-like megaphones and a microphone capable of receiving extremely low frequencies. In their case, though, devices may be necessary at all times, as they cannot mix sounds like toothed cetaceans can. On the other hand, two cases of captive elephants ; one in Kazakhstan and another in South Korea ; suggest that the last may learn to speak at our level by blowing in their trunk and releasing the trapped air as a modulated sound, effectively imitating our speech.
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For a real world example of this process as proof of concept, anyone interested should google the 2006 incident at the national aquarium involving NoC (pronounced NoSee) the Beluga “talking” to a diver in the tank saying “get out” who was wearing a diver communication system that operates on this principle which is a modern version of the UQC
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