Researchers have found a pattern indicating certain ‘words’ are used more often than others – but humans won’t be speaking whale any time soon
Humpback whale song is structured in a similar way to human language – with shorter sounds used far more often than more complex ones – a structure which helps infants quickly learn how to communicate from their elders in both species.
Dr Jenny Allen, an expert in whale song structure at Griffith University and co-author of the paper, said one of the things that made humpback whales so fascinating was how often their song changed and how quickly whales were able to learn a new song. He said human babies used an approach called “statistical learning” in order to identify words in the continuous stream of language that they’re exposed to. “It sounds technical and complicated,” Kirby said, “but actually it’s beautifully simple.”
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