Whale Songs Rival Human Speech in Information Delivery and Efficiency: Study

Amaze Lab

Whales are known for their eerie undersea songs, but now experts say those melodic tones are far more complex than previously believed. Researchers were able to decipher hidden- language like structures with the tunes, those that seem to have evolved over time.

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00:00Whales are known for their eerie undersea songs but now experts say those

00:08melodic tones are far more complex than previously believed. For decades it was

00:15thought that human speech was the penultimate communication method on

00:18earth. However these findings suggest that whale songs might just rival our

00:22own communication. The researchers were able to decipher hidden language like

00:25structures within the tunes. Those that seem to have evolved over time and while

00:29they often lack semantic meaning, the songs are full of information the

00:32oceanic mammals are communicating to one another. In fact humpback whales in

00:40particular have better speech efficiency than human languages. This allows the

00:44creatures to share vital possibly life-saving information much more quickly

00:47than our species. Meaning whales may even be capable of developing articulate

00:51speech patterns but their families evolutionary trajectory favored brevity

00:55for survival. With the researchers saying that the humpback whale language is the

00:59most similar to human speech with regards to its patterns. What's more they

01:03teach their songs to their young just like humans culturally passing down

01:06complex compositions.

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