Source: Radio New Zealand
The vocalised communications of sperm whales are closer to human language and speech pattern than previously thought, new research has discovered.
Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley made the discovery that the whales could form vowels within their vocalisations which behaved in the same way as human speech.
The study was conducted by Project Ceti Settie, which stood for the Cetacean Translation Initiative, who last month released video of a sperm whale giving birth while other whales supported it.
A group of sperm whales. AMANDA COTTON / SUPPLIED
Study lead, Professor Gašper Beguš, told Morning Report, people had described the way whales spoke to each other as similar morse code up until now.
“If you look closely and think about their timing as very slow you realise actually the patterns we see are much richer and much more similar to human vowels.
“They also produce these vowels in the same ways we do but with their noses.”
He said it was fascinating to see how much more similar they were to humans when you realised it was all just about timing.
A whale listening station used by Project Ceti Settie. Project Ceti / SUPPLIED
“We observed the same vowels in several situations now when they are giving birth, before they hunt, when they socialise.”
The whales “really liked” to talk to each other, Beguš said, and it was thought the conversations may be meaningful.
“I think what we are observing is that there is complexity that is unprecedented and that is suggesting maybe they’re talking about something very complex.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
