Is Whale Song a Language as Complex as Our Own?

In 1955, amidst the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War, the United States Navy initiated a classified program. The objective was to strategically deploy underwater microphones across the ocean floor to monitor and track the movements of enemy submarines. Did they discover Whale Song? How did they find out the language of Whales?

Table of Contents:

Introduction

The core function of this clandestine network was focused squarely on detecting the mechanical sounds associated with distant submarines – the hum of engines, the churn of propellers. However, as the hydrophones were deployed and began collecting data, they picked up more than just the anticipated mechanical rumblings. Amidst the noise of the deep, a strange, haunting sound began to register. This eerie, winding noise echoed across vast distances of the ocean.

For years following its initial detection, the source of this mysterious recording remained unknown. Lacking a clear explanation, researchers initially considered various possibilities that might account for the sounds, including noises potentially originating from unidentified ships or unknown geological phenomena beneath the waves. These seemed like the most plausible answers at the time, given the limited understanding of the underwater soundscape.

The situation changed significantly when the files containing these unusual recordings were eventually declassified. Once made public, these recordings were handed over to a young biologist. This biologist, after reviewing the data, proposed a radically different explanation: the strange noises represented the complex vocalisations of the humpback whale, one of the largest and loudest animals on the planet. Previously, these marine giants were largely perceived as silent creatures of the ocean depths.

Further listening revealed that these were more than just random noises. Recent research, published in the academic Journal of Science, suggests that these whale calls may follow structured patterns remarkably similar to human communication. This potentially constitutes a language as complex as our own.

Understanding the Building Blocks of Human Communication

To appreciate the potential complexity of whale communication, it is helpful to first understand how our brains process human language. When we hear a sentence in our native language, words seem to arrive perfectly spaced and distinct. However, this perception is an illusion; words typically blur into one another. For example, in the sentence, “That young gentleman has a physics PhD,” while we perceive pauses, they are not inherent in the sound stream. Try listening to any language other than your native language. They just seem like words blur into one another.

The Role of Phones and Transition Probability

Our brains perform extraordinary work to break the continuous stream of noise into meaningful units. Human languages are composed of distinguishable noises called Phonemes. English, for instance, uses about 40 of these phonemes. Phonemes combine to form syllables, which then combine to form words. A word like “that” is formed from the component noises ‘th’, ‘a’, and ‘t’.

The likelihood of one phoneme following another is known as its Transition Probability. A high transition probability exists between sounds that frequently appear together, such as ‘th’ followed by ‘a’ in “that” or Thanks, Thanos etc. Conversely, combinations with almost zero transition probability indicate likely gaps between words.

Boundary Segmentation: Finding the Gaps

Our brains use this concept of transition probability to perform Boundary Segmentation. Low probability transitions signal the end of one word and the beginning of the next. This process allows our brains to block and group the noises we make to each other into discrete words and sentences.

We learn this complex process of segmentation largely through extensive exposure to language as children. We listen to thousands of hours and utilise cues from visual context, intonation, stress, and rhythm to identify word boundaries.

Zipf’s Law and Language Structure

Examining the organizational structure of human language reveals another interesting pattern. Shorter word segments, such as “the” and “and,” appear more frequently than longer ones. If we analyze word frequency in a large text, such as Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’, we observe a consistent relationship: the most frequently used words occur approximately twice as often as the next most common words. This pattern continues, following a power law. This phenomenon is known as the Zipfian Distribution.

Imagine trying to learn a new language, not from a textbook, but just by listening. Your brain is constantly performing complex calculations, finding the boundaries between words based on which sounds usually stick together and which indicate a pause – like a linguistic detective sifting through a continuous sound stream.

Researchers find this distinctive distribution across all human languages. It has been considered a characteristic marker of the true complexity of human communication, often a source of pride and a perceived uniqueness among animal species.

Roger Payne and the Discovery of Whale Song

This view began to change significantly in 1967. Biologist Roger Payne listened to the eerie recordings from the US Navy’s submarine detection experiment. He realized that the noises made by whales were far more complex than previously imagined. They contained a series of beautiful and varied sounds, now widely known as whale song.

The Structure of Whale Song

Payne discovered that segments of the recordings repeated themselves. These repetitions occurred over periods of 7 to 30 minutes. During this time, each individual noise or call repeated itself in the same order, frequency, and rhythm with remarkable precision. These were not merely random sounds but structured Songs, with sections (choruses) significantly longer than many human pop songs.

Evolution and Transmission of Songs

Even more astonishing was the finding that individual whales could pass these songs to one another. Furthermore, the songs were not static; they evolved over time. They sometimes exhibited rapid bursts of creativity, akin to the birth of entirely new music trends. Other individuals would then adopt and repeat these evolving songs, suggesting a form of cultural transmission.

Impact on Conservation

Payne’s discovery was revolutionary, especially at a time when whalers were still hunting whales commercially. His findings suggested a level of intelligence and a form of communication that was rich and intricate, potentially even indicating a shared whale culture. The idea that whales possessed something akin to language captured the public’s imagination.

Payne released an album titled “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” which became a bestselling vinyl record. Ultimately, Payne’s work played a significant role in igniting the global anti-whaling movement.

Early, Controversial Experiments by Dr. John Lily

Following Payne’s initial discoveries, the field of human-whale communication took some unusual turns, particularly with the work of Dr. John Lily. Unlike traditional marine biologists who studied whale behaviour in their natural habitat, Lily sought to create controlled environments for direct interaction with dolphins, another highly intelligent marine mammal.

Attempts to Teach Human Speech

One of Lily’s most radical experiments involved attempting to teach dolphins to communicate with humans using spoken English. He designed an ambitious project: a flooded house where a young researcher lived with a dolphin named Peter in an attempt to teach him human speech. This experiment, aimed at achieving interspecies communication through human vocalisation, ultimately failed.

Interspecies Communion Facilitation

Subsequently, Lily became deeply involved in psychedelic drug research. He began administering LSD to dolphins with the hope of facilitating interspecies communion. This approach also ended in failure. The scientific community widely criticized it due to significant ethical and methodological flaws.

A Field Left Orphaned

These controversial experiments contributed to human-whale communication becoming a somewhat ridiculed and marginalized area of scientific exploration for a time.

A Twenty-Minute Conversation: Breakthroughs in Alaska

Despite the setbacks, interest in whale communication persisted, leading to significant developments. In 2021, off the coast of Alaska, a team of marine researchers from the Whale Setti project lowered a speaker into the water. Their goal was to broadcast a pre-recorded humpback contact call, a sound believed to help whales stay connected over long distances, and observe if any whales would respond.

The Interaction with Twain

Remarkably, within minutes of playing the contact call, a known humpback whale in the area, named Twain, appeared near the research boat. To the researchers’ astonishment, she responded. The team played the sound again, and Twain answered back repeatedly. For 20 minutes, the scientists broadcast a call, and Twain would respond.

This interaction went beyond simple imitation. When the research team introduced a time delay between their calls, Twain similarly delayed her return call. She would wait the same amount of time after the researchers’ call before issuing her response. This behavior of synchronising her response to the delay between each call continued for the entire 20 minutes of exchanges.

Could this synchronised timing be simple mimicry, or does it hint at a deeper understanding of conversational turn-taking, echoing the back-and-forth rhythm of human dialogue? This observation was unprecedented. Observing an animal respond where the time since the last human-issued call is perfectly factored into their answer, down to the second, raises profound questions. It suggests that factors like Cadence and Rhythm may be important in whale communication, possibly indicating an understanding of time or temporal relationships in communication exchanges.

Applying Language Models to Whale Communication

Recent research applying linguistic analysis methods to whale vocalizations has further illuminated the significance of the Twain interaction and Roger Payne’s earlier work. A groundbreaking paper published in the Journal of Science analyzed eight years of humpback whale songs using the same models used to study human language structure. Instead of English’s approximately 40 phones, the team identified a set of 150 distinct noises frequently used by whales in their calls. These included sounds described as “squeak,” “groan,” and “pulsed n-shaped moan.”

Identifying Syllables and “Words”

From the identification of these discrete noises, the team mapped the transition probability between each sound. They found that a larger structure reliably repeated between some calls but not others. For example, a “pulsed n-shaped moan” transitioning into a “descending squeak” was common, but the reverse transition was rare.

This patterned transition indicated to the team that rules of logic or Syntax governed how certain sounds can be combined. It also suggested the presence of boundaries between discrete sounds. Essentially, the researchers had found structures akin to Syllables and something resembling Words in whale songs. The possibility that Twain might have been using “words” in her interaction with the researchers is fascinating.

Zipfian Distribution in Whale Song

The analysis went further. Revisiting the concept of the Zipfian distribution, the team conducted an analysis of the “words” identified within the whale songs. By ordering word length against its frequency, they found that, just like in all human languages, shorter “words” occurred more frequently than longer ones.

Furthermore, when analyzing the frequency and commonality of these whale “words,” they discovered that whales used the most common “words” twice as frequently as the next most common ones, replicating the Zipfian distribution perfectly. Researchers observed this pattern for the first time in any animal species studied.

This strong evidence for a complexity of structure remarkably similar to our own makes it compelling to consider that we may be witnessing true, complex whale language. Such a finding reshapes our understanding of communication.

The Quest for Meaning: What Are Whales Communicating?

The obvious question arising from these findings is whether we can decode anything that these whales are saying and if their sounds carry semantic meaning. The simple answer, as the source material states, is “we have no idea.” The complicated answer is “we have no idea yet.”

Decoding Requires Context

Mapping any level of meaning to individual noises, “words,” or “sentences” in whale communication would require a much deeper understanding of the context and circumstances in which these sounds are produced. We need correlated data sets from experiments to associate specific sounds or patterns with particular situations or stimuli.

Identifying Potential “Names” and Turn-Taking

While full decoding remains elusive, researchers have made some progress in understanding functional communication elements. For example, a study in 2008 on sperm whales discovered that individuals repeat unique click patterns when approaching others. These patterns are rhythmically distinct to each individual, and whales respond differently depending on the clicking pattern they hear. This suggests that sperm whales may recognize and remember each other through something equivalent to a Name.

Researchers could make this finding because they had a large dataset of interactions starting with these distinct click patterns, providing the necessary correlation between sound and context (approaching behavior).

Another study, mentioned in 2024 regarding sperm whales, found evidence of turn-taking and synchronization. As one sperm whale started a call, a nearby whale would respond, adjusting its speed, delay, or frequency to match the first whale’s tempo. This ability to synchronize timing and frequency might be crucial for individuals to converse effectively above ambient noise or within a larger group (pod) of whales.

Periodically, between long exchanges or when switching between multiple communicators, whales would also issue a singular, standalone additional click sound. This could function almost like a Punctuation Point at the end of a sentence or a call sign like “over”.

Alternative Perspectives on Complexity

It is also important to consider that the value of this deep structuring of sounds and chaining them together might not be solely about conveying complex concepts through discrete symbols, as it is for humans. While the complexity suggests some meaningful value (it would be costly to develop otherwise), it’s possible these structured vocalizations primarily indicate good quality cognitive genetics or signal a good quality mate.

However, the presence of structured rules (syntax), identifiable units (syllables, words), and organizational patterns (Zipf’s Law) strongly indicates a level of complexity consistent with what we define as language.

Conclusion

The journey to understand whale communication has evolved dramatically since the initial, unexpected sounds picked up by Cold War hydrophones. From Roger Payne’s pioneering discovery of the complex structure and cultural transmission of humpback whale songs, to recent breakthroughs using linguistic models that reveal striking similarities to human language structure, the evidence points towards a level of complexity previously unimagined in the animal kingdom.

While decoding the precise meaning behind these vocalizations remains a significant challenge, requiring more correlated data and dedicated observation, the findings regarding syntax, syllables, “words,” Zipf’s Law, and even potential “names” and communication timing provide compelling evidence that we are listening to something far more sophisticated than mere animal noise. This research not only deepens our appreciation for the intelligence of these magnificent creatures but also holds potential implications for how we approach understanding other complex signal systems, both on Earth and potentially from beyond.

What can you do?

Understanding the complexity of whale communication is an evolving field that challenges our anthropocentric view of language and intelligence. Supporting marine research organizations that study whale behavior and communication contributes directly to gathering the data needed to potentially decode these intricate vocalizations. Educating others about the intelligence and complex social structures of whales can also help foster greater respect and protection for these magnificent creatures. Engaging with scientific publications and accessible content on animal behavior and communication keeps you informed about new discoveries in this fascinating area.

Disclaimer

This article discusses terms related to linguistics and communication science as they are applied in the context of analyzing whale vocalizations based on the provided source material. Definitions for clarity:

• Phonemes: The basic, distinguishable units of sound in a language.
• Transition Probability: The statistical likelihood of one sound following another in a sequence.
• Boundary Segmentation: The process by which the brain identifies the likely boundaries between words in a continuous stream of sound, often based on low transition probabilities.
• Zipfian Distribution: A pattern observed in many systems, including natural language, where the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table.
• Syllables: Units of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word. In the context of whales, this refers to repeatable sound units identified through analysis.
• Words: Discrete units of language that have semantic meaning and can be used independently. In the context of whales, this refers to repeatable combinations of sounds or syllables identified through analysis that show structured patterns like Zipf’s Law.
• Syntax: The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. In the context of whales, this refers to the rules or patterns governing how different sounds or sound combinations are sequenced.
• Cadence: The rhythm or flow of a sequence of sounds.
• Rhythm: A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.
• Punctuation Point: A sound or pattern used to mark transitions or ends of communication segments.

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