How a Whale Tried to Bridge the Linguistic Divide Between Humans and Animals

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00:00How a whale tried to bridge the linguistic divide between humans and animals.

00:04In 1984, during the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program,

00:08Nock, a beluga whale, shocked everyone by mimicking human voices.

00:13A diver emerged asking who instructed him to leave,

00:16revealing Nock's astonishing vocal ability.

00:21A diver first noticed Nock mimicking human speech,

00:25distinctly hearing out, out, out.

00:27The team recorded his vocalizations.

00:30Using rewards to teach him to speak on command.

00:34A pressure sensor was placed in Nock's nasal cavity

00:36to study how whale biology produces these noises.

00:42Initially skeptical, Sam Ridgway,

00:45president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation,

00:48confirmed Nock's mimicking abilities in 2012.

00:51Analysis of Nock's sound waves revealed differences from typical beluga sounds,

00:56resembling human voices in rhythm and acoustic spectrum.

00:59Ridgway led the study on Nock's behavior.

01:05Pressure sensors verified.

01:07Nock mimicked human speech by altering rhythm and pitch,

01:10adjusting nasal pressure,

01:11inflating the vestibular sac,

01:13and modifying muscles for deliberate communication.

01:16Ridgway noted in 2012,

01:17Nock's vocal changes indicated a strong motivation for contact.

01:25Nock, a beluga whale, was crucial in the U.S. Marine program.

01:30Initially trained for mine detection in the 1960s,

01:33belugas excelled in 1970s Arctic Cold War Ops,

01:37leveraging their sonar and cold water adaptability for the Cold Ops initiative.

01:41Two-year-old Nock,

01:45the youngest of six belugas caught by Inuit hunters,

01:49spent his life in captivity, working with trainers.

01:52He participated in two secret Navy missions,

01:54and gained fame in 2012 when Current Biology published his speech study.

01:58In this video,

02:04we'd like to use a few weeks of work.

02:09So,

02:09nock of thing is a very fun thing to do.

02:10We'll see you next time.

02:11We'll see you next time.

02:12We'll see you next time.