American researchers have managed to analyze the language of sperm whales using AI and thus create a real sperm whale alphabet.
Sperm whales communicate with each other using clicking sounds. American researchers established that it is a real language, for example, the clicking sounds between hunting sperm whales are different from those when, for example, a new calf enters the herd. The sperm whales always use the same sounds, but they combine them differently.
By attaching microphones to about 60 sperm whales in the Eastern Caribbean Sea, the scientists were able to record 8,719 codas – the word they gave to sperm whale sentences. They then linked this to the situation the sperm whales were in at that moment. They then unleashed artificial intelligence to find underlying structures.
“The research proves that humans may not be unique in their ability to combine sounds to express themselves in ever new ways,” said Leonie Cornips of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in De Volkskrant. “The recurring structures from the codas of sperm whales serve as a kind of ‘phonetic alphabet’ of their language.” Although we don’t know yet what they say, it hasn’t been deciphered yet. (csn)
