For as long as I can remember, I've been aware that whales, dolphins, porpoises, and other large mammals of the seas (the cetaceans) make whistles, clicks, calls, groans, songs, and other sounds / noises. These vocalizations are manifestly complex and nuanced, leading people to believe that they are communicating content, emotions, and so forth. What exactly they are conveying and how they do it have remained a mystery, but researchers never stop trying to figure out cetacean "language". A new study at MIT claims to have made progress in analyzing sperm whale sound systems.
Scientists document remarkable sperm whale 'phonetic alphabet'
By Will Dunham, Reuters (May 7, 2024)
[with 2:58 video]
I was hesitant to read this article at all because of the mention of a "phonetic alphabet". Even with the quotation marks around it, attributing this ability to sperm whales was a bit much for me.
Yet, since it was "scientists" doing the documenting, I forced myself to read the first two paragraphs:
The various
species of whales inhabiting Earth's oceans employ different types of vocalizations to communicate. Sperm whales, the largest of the
toothed whales, communicate using bursts of clicking noises – called codas – sounding a bit like Morse code.
A new analysis of years of vocalizations by sperm whales in the eastern Caribbean has found that their system of communication is more sophisticated than previously known, exhibiting a complex internal structure replete with a "phonetic alphabet." The researchers identified similarities to aspects of other animal communication systems – and even human language.
Read the rest of this entry »
