Whale songs follow a lot of the same rules as human language

February 22, 2025 7:31 PM

Whale songs follow a lot of the same rules as human language. Scientists have discovered that human language and whale songs have remarkable similarities in the way they are segmented and structured.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (10 comments total)

As long as it's not three languages wearing a huge waterlogged trench coat...
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:06 PM on February 22 [2 favorites]

Honestly I was relieved to see the comment from the scientists differentiating "language" and "language-like" and explaining this in terms of facilitating learning rather than conveying meaning. And the relief was because if whales really were talking that would add another layer of horror to their mass slaughter. I admit this is not very rational.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:18 PM on February 22 [1 favorite]

Whale brains are 5 times bigger than ours, so it makes sense they have language.
posted by otherchaz at 3:31 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

Now that's the kind of large language model I can get behind. They don't come much larger.

if whales really were talking that would add another layer of horror

The exact kind of horror, even, that might plausibly motivate somebody to describe their language as "language-like".

Of course animals converse with each other. There should be no controversy there, only questions concerning what they're talking about.

Seriously, if LLM research ever does yield some way to derive some kind of comprehensible consensus world model from the statistical properties of languages, that's the kind of question I hope it gets applied to. Anybody else think we'd all be in better shape if somebody did manage to build a DeepDolittle?
posted by flabdablet at 4:10 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

Mod note: One comment removed that was fixing a bad link in this comment
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:12 AM on February 23 [1 favorite]

I think mothers and calves sing more than this article suggests, but not as long and complex as the matting songs.

Although about orcas instead, check out Bluk Food by Peter Watts & Laurie Channer.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:04 AM on February 23

While the whales might use complex songs as part of their mating ritual, there's no language or information inside the song itself.

That’s a pretty bold pronouncement.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:59 AM on February 23 [2 favorites]

Oblig. commercial: "Hey man, Is that whalesong?" "Yeah, man!." "Well, turn it up, man!"
posted by zaixfeep at 11:28 AM on February 23

It's cool that these breakthroughs were based on simple statistical analyses. Others are suggesting that it is merely a matter of time before AI can decode animal language (see for example the Earth Species Project or the book "How to speak whale").
posted by piyushnz at 1:05 PM on February 23

also btw...
How a uniquely human genetic tweak changed the voices of mice (nature)
posted by kliuless at 10:19 PM on February 23 [1 favorite]