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- Whale song's similarity to human speech astonishes scientists
Whale song's similarity to human speech astonishes scientists
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Research suggests that humpback whale songs exhibit a similar structural pattern as human language, with frequent and infrequent "words" or elements following a Zipfian distribution. This distribution is also observed in human languages, where common words are used more frequently than less common ones. Furthermore, the structure of humpback whale songs has been found to share similarities with human language patterns, such as the way words are separated and the use of short, mundane "words" in frequent rotation. This statistical rule is universal across human languages, indicating a possible evolutionary or cognitive connection between humpback whale songs and human language.
The hottest 100 on the east coast this year might be the hottest 100 across the ditch in New Zealand the next year.
The only other species where you see learning on that spatial scale is in humans.
Human language and whale song are both culturally learned, so whales learn the songs from the other whales that they spend time with. So that's why all the whales in one population will be singing the same song.
Whale song, we believe, is a reproductive display, because it's only males that sing, and they primarily sing to and from the breeding grounds.
Whale song is not a language; it lacks semantic meaning. It may be more reminiscent of human music, which also has this statistical structure, but lacks the expressive meaning found in language.
We expect them to evolve to be easy to learn.
It was one of those moments that was just total goosebumps.
I saw the graph appear and I thought, 'I can't believe this.'
What we've uncovered here is a deep commonality between two species separated by 70 or 80 million years of evolution. The common ancestor of whales and humans was probably some little shrew-like creature.
What's so gratifying for me is to see that same logic seems to also potentially apply to whale song.
We think of language as this culturally evolving system that has to essentially be passed on by its hosts, which are humans.
If you think of a word like 'baby', after a 'bae' sound, 'bee' is a relatively predictable continuation of that sound.
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