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Sperm Whales Produce Vowel Patterns Like Human Speech
Researchers found vowel- and diphthong-like patterns in sperm whale clicks, suggesting complex communication; analysis included about 9,000 codas, revealing over 156 distinct types.
- New research published in Open Mind finds that sperm whale codas contain vowel-like and diphthong-like patterns, as revealed when recordings are sped up, said Gaaper Begua of UC Berkeley and Project CETI.
- Over the past five years, Project CETI documented hundreds of whales off Dominica, Caribbean, with the vowel insight growing from a two-year-old elephant-inspired reframing and last year’s MIT researchers’ paper on coda properties.
- Using around 9,000 recordings, Project CETI researchers deployed drones, hydrophones and on‑whale tags, feeding data into custom AI models described as 'ChatGPT for whales' to identify vocal patterns.
- CETI and NYU collaborators propose legal uses of the science, arguing in Ecology Law Quarterly that CETI evidence could ground at least two rights for sperm whales: freedom from torture and cultural rights.
- Human-Caused noise and ship strikes pose acute threats to whales, killing around 20,000 annually amid a global shipping fleet of more than 100,000 vessels; if confirmed, findings could reshape scientific community and conservation policymakers’ views.
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UC Berkeley and Project CETI study shows sperm whales communicate in ways similar to humans
The way sperm whales communicate may be more similar to human language than previously thought. The acoustic properties of whale calls resemble vowels, a defining feature of human language, according to a new study from UC Berkeley’s Linguistics Department and Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative). These findings could revolutionize our understanding of the animal
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Total News Sources18
Leaning Left3Leaning Right0Center7Last UpdatedBias Distribution70% Center
Bias Distribution
- 70% of the sources are Center
70% Center
L 30%
C 70%
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