If you’ve ever listened to the wild clicks, grunts and groans of whales songs, you’ve probably wondered what these new wave jazz-like sounds mean.
While we’re nowhere near a whale-to-English translation guide, new research from the University of Auckland has found that humpback whale songs share a similar structure to human language–and this similarity is one that hints at the role of culture in whale communities.
In murky ocean waters, sound can travel a lot further than images, which is why whales and many other marine animals rely on sound to communicate with each other. But while many marine animals make noise, whale songs in particular have been an object of fascination since the late 1960s, when a marine biologist named Robert Payne first realized that the marine mammals’ vocalizations contained patterns that could indicate communication or music–and released an album of these otherwordly songs to the public.
Ever since this discovery, scientists around the world have been recording whales and working to figure out what their songs mean. Just last year, scientists studying sperm whales in the Caribbean found that the toothed whales may have a phonetic alphabet of clicks and codas.
This new study analyzing humpbacks went deep on the structure of the songs themselves. Human languages share similarities in how often common words appear in speech, and this commonality is thought to occur throughout human societies because it helps children learn language over generations. By looking to see if humpback whale songs had common phrases that occurred with similar frequencies, the researchers were able to determine that indeed, the songs showed the same hallmarks of human language.
Not only is this cool in itself, it also highlights how humpbacks and other whales may transmit their songs from generation to generation the same way we do. The ongoing study of whale songs keeps hinting at specific whale culture–from generations learning songs from one another to cross-Pacific whale pop hits, and we’re getting exciting glimpses into the complex lives of these gentle giants.
In many ways, these complex songs and the potential culture they represent are at risk: as industrial impacts on the ocean increases, so too does the noise we make. This noise can drown out whale calls and stress the animals out. And for some species, like North Atlantic right whales, an increasingly industrial ocean could mean the extinction of their species.
We can keep whales and their songs safe, but only if we take action to reduce our impact on their watery home.
If we do, we can enjoy the free form jazz beats of these majestic beings for centuries to come.
