Scientists are getting increasingly closer to unraveling communication among whales. A study published on May 7th showed that sperm whales have their own phonetic alphabet — that is, the species communicates through different standardized sounds just like humans. Research also showed that these animals can put these sounds together in blocks that are similar to words and phrases, thus creating a kind of special language for whales.

The sounds made by sperm whales are called clicks and are produced by means of air compression in their respiratory system. Scientists call each set of clicks a coda and generally have a maximum duration of two seconds. According to the study, sperm whales have four ways of organizing codas: rhythm, tempo, rubato, and ornamentation.

For a long time, clicks were believed to be emitted randomly. But the new study revealed that certain patterns are repeated in the interactions between whales.

In the study, 8,719 codas recorded between 2005 and 2018 were analyzed for a clan of around 400 whales in the Eastern Caribbean. According to researchers, this is not the time to try to understand exactly what each sound means, but rather to understand how they organize these noises. The next step is to dive deeper into how codas influence behavior and interactions among sperm whales.

The study concludes that “The existence of a combinatorial coding system (…) is a prerequisite for duality of patterning. Our fi ndings open up the possibility that sperm whale communication might provide our fi rst example of that phenomenon in another species”.”

WHALE LANGUAGE

☞ Click: sound emitted

☞ Coda: set of sounds that form meaning

☞ Rhythm: number and arrangement of clicks within a single coda ☞ Tempo: duration of a coda

☞ Rubato: modulation (variation) during successive codas

☞ Ornamentation: codas with extra clicks, that is, that have one or more clicks than the previous or subsequent codas

SOURCES: NATURE, CETI PROJECT, AND THE NEW YORK TIMES.

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