Whale Words

In the 1970s, Roger Payne had a multi-platinum record, a surprise hit for two big reasons: Payne was a marine biologist, not a musician. And the singers on the album… were whales.

Payne’s “Songs of the Humpback Whale” revealed that other creatures may have complex language. It raised interest in whale intelligence, and led to the passage of laws protecting them.

It also encouraged scientists from many different fields to try to figure out what the whales are saying.

Project CETI has been studying the dialogue of a clan of sperm whales in the Caribbean for many years.

Sperm whales communicate with rapid clicks, produced by blowing pressurized air through their nasal cavities, which is then amplified by a resonating organ in their heads.

They can vary the number and tempo of the clicks to form complex streams.

Scientists recorded thousands of click streams, then used machine learning to uncover 156 patterns shared by individuals in the clan – like a vocabulary of whale words.

However, they still have no idea what these words could mean. So, the next step is to attach cameras to the whales to try to connect actions to the words.

If they can understand this whale clan’s vocabulary, they may be able to communicate with them…

And perhaps decipher the language of other whales, other lifeforms on Earth, maybe even signals from beyond our planet.