Brevity is the wit...of Dolphins.

An interesting story.. Discovery.com

Among the words we use most often, short ones like "I," "a" and "the" top the list. It turns out we're not the only ones who strive for this type of efficiency in the way we communicate. Dolphins, found a new study, do it, too.

It's the first evidence that another species follows one of the basic rules that defines allhuman languages: the law of brevity.

The work, which is just one step in a larger attempt to understand the evolution of communication, also suggests that humans might not be as special as we like to think we are.

"Indirectly, this is telling us something about us," said David Lusseau, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland. "More broadly, it is helping us understand how you get to this level of complexity. Is there only a limited way to reach it or can you reach it in many different manners?"