Editor's Corner

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about accents, and I got a lot of responses. Some of you mentioned your love of accents, and some of you shared how you feel about the way our language and our accents are evolving.

I got a wonderful response from Mike S. that I want to pass on because what he shared with me is both amazing and heart-warming.

My original post referenced an article called “The Science of Accents,” which states that animals have accents too: goats in different regions make different sounds, and gibbons sing different songs depending on the group they live with. But Mike let me know about a nature article, posted on 10/26/2017, in United News International (UNI). It’s about a beluga whale in Crimea that learned the language of another species!

The article tells about a female beluga whale that was living with a pod of dolphins, and within two months, “…recording sessions revealed she had ditched her own species’ unique calls and was making the same whistling noises as the dolphins in her pool.”

I find that amazing! I knew whales and dolphins were smart, but holy moly!

We all (humans and animals) have a need to communicate and connect with others. And humans do it in so many ways: writing, speaking, sign language, body language, facial expressions, art, singing, and one of my favorites: Morris dancing. (Oh, you should see it in person; what a spectacle!)

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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