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## Decoding the Deep: Are Humans Unlocking the Algorithm of Whale Language and Communication?

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## Decoding the Deep: Are Humans Unlocking the Algorithm of Whale Language and Communication?

 

Forcenturies, the enigmatic world of whales has captivated humanity. These majestic marine mammals exhibit a long list of behaviors mirroring our own, yet their primary sense for interacting with their environment isn't sight, but sound. Recent groundbreaking research suggests we are closer than ever to understanding the intricate algorithms that govern whale communication, raising the tantalizing question: could we soon be conversing with these ocean giants?

For centuries, the enigmatic world of whales has captivated humanity. These majestic marine mammals exhibit a long list of behaviors mirroring our own, yet their primary sense for interacting with their environment isn't sight, but sound. Recent groundbreaking research suggests we are closer than ever to understanding the intricate algorithms that govern whale communication, raising the tantalizing question: could we soon be conversing with these ocean giants?
## Decoding the Deep: Are Humans Unlocking the Algorithm of Whale Language and Communication?

## Decoding the Deep: Are Humans Unlocking the Algorithm of Whale Language and Communication?


In 2021,

 off the coast of southeastern Alaska, a team of six scientists played a greeting call to a pod of humpback whales using an underwater loudspeaker. To their astonishment, one whale, affectionately named "Twin," responded in a conversational manner. 

  • Josie Hubbard, an animal behavior scientist at the University of California,
  • Davis, described the experience as "an otherworldly experience." She was
  •  aboard a research vessel, all engines off, in Frederick Sound, Alaska, when
  •  she first encountered the humpbacks.

 


Hubbard recounted, "By the rules, you have to stop hundreds of meters from whales and turn off the boat's engine." She added that whales rarely approach the vessel, but in this instance, 38-year-old Twin actively moved towards the boat, circling it for 20 minutes.

 This unexpected interaction highlighted the potential for a deeper, more intentional form of communication than previously understood.

 

### The Nature of Information in Whale Vocalizations

 

Mason Youngblood, a researcher at the Stony Brook Institute for Advanced Computational Science, studies animal communication and cultural evolution. He emphasizes that while whales use sounds to communicate, the "type of information they convey differs from the information we transmit through language.

  1. " Some whale species, such as humpbacks and bowheads, communicate
  2.  through songs, while sperm whales use clicks to indicate their community.
  3.  Other species, like dolphins, employ clicks and whistles for coordinated
  4.  hunting, foraging, play, and even naming individuals.

 

Youngblood’s research, comparing communication styles across 16 different whale species with 51 diverse human languages (ranging from European to indigenous), revealed that some of these species' communications closely follow Menzerath's law and Zipf's law.

 

### Evaluating the Laws of Language

 

Zipf's law, in simple terms, posits that if you count the words in a long book and rank them by frequency, the most common word (e.g., "the" in English) will appear far more often than the next most frequent word. This inverse relationship between rank and frequency is central to Zipf's law.

 

  • A study published in the journal *Science* found that whale songs share
  •  fundamental structural similarities with human language. Researchers used a
  •  model related to the distribution of relative word usage frequency, a pattern
  •  also observed in infants learning language.

 This approach allows for the study of pre-verbal patterns and the analysis of songs and calls in other species. Applying this to humpback whale songs collected over eight years, the researchers found clear evidence of Zipfian distribution, along with other distinct features of human language.

 

While this research was deemed exciting, Dr. Jenny Allen, a whale behavior researcher at Griffith University in Australia and the University of St Andrews in Scotland, cautioned that it "suggests that whale songs are not a form of communication in the same way humans communicate.

" She added, "The main thing is to understand that what resembles language and language itself are two separate things. While whales may use complex songs as part of mating rituals, there is no language or information within the song itself."

 

### 50 Million Years of Evolution

 

Whales have evolved over 50 million years to produce and perceive a diverse array of complex sounds. They rely on noise for various purposes: communicating with each other, navigating, finding mates and food, defending territories and resources, and avoiding predators.

  •  Their young "chatter" like human infants, some are believed to have names,
  •  and groups from different parts of the ocean speak regional dialects. Whales
  •  have even been observed imitating the dialects of foreign groups, and some
  •  are thought to have experimented with human language.

 

Baleen whales, including humpbacks, right whales, and blue whales, have developed a unique larynx that enables them to produce ultra-low frequency sounds, capable of traveling vast distances. Blue whales, for instance, emit frequencies as low as 12.5 Hz, categorized as infrasound – below the human hearing threshold.

 Toothed whales, which include sperm whales, dolphins, porpoises, and killer whales, are among the loudest animals on Earth, using ultra-fast clicks for echolocation to perceive their world, in addition to gentle sound pulses and whistles for communication.

 

### The Coda Language of Sperm Whales

 

Sperm whales, in particular, are astonishing creatures. They possess the largest brain among all living organisms, six times the size of a human brain. Scientists believe this brain may have evolved to support intelligent and rational behavior. These whales are highly social, capable of making collective decisions, and exhibit complex behaviors during foraging.

 

  1. However, much remains unknown about them, including what they are trying
  2.  to convey when communicating through a system of short bursts of "clicks"
  3.  known as codas. 

A team of researchers led by Pratyusha Sharma at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) used statistical models to analyze these whale codas. They were able to identify a language structure similar to the features of complex phonetic syllables used by humans.

 

The team utilized a set of algorithms for pattern recognition and classification to analyze recordings of up to 8,719 codas from approximately 60 whales. The Dominica Sperm Whale Project was responsible for collecting these recordings between 2005 and 2018.

 

The team found that the whales' communication method is neither random nor primitive; rather, it is organized according to the context of the conversations taking place among them. 

This allowed the team to identify distinct sounds not previously captured. The algorithms transformed the clicks within the coda data into a new type of visual data representation, which the researchers called an "exchange plot," leading to the discovery of additional clicks within some codas.

 

These additional clicks, synchronized with changes in the duration of vocalizations, appeared in interactions between multiple whales. Researchers suggest this indicates that codas may carry more information and possess a more complex internal structure than previously thought.

 

As research continues to build upon the latest findings, the next step involves the team building language models for whale calls and studying the relationship between these calls and different whale behaviors. 

The team also plans to work on a more generalized system for use with multiple species, as Sharma articulated, "Studying a communication system about which we know nothing, investigating how information is encoded and broadcast by whales, and understanding what is being slowly transmitted thereafter, could lead to many benefits beyond whales." 

She concluded, "I believe we have only just begun to understand some of these things. We are still at the beginning, but we are slowly making our way."

## Decoding the Deep: Are Humans Unlocking the Algorithm of Whale Language and Communication?


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Tamer Nabil Moussa

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