🐳 AI has been used to identify a phonetic alphabet in sperm whales

• CETI is a research project aimed at understanding whale communication.
• Sperm whale vocalizations show a structure similar to human language.
• They have now discovered 156 distinct coda types instead of the previously known 21.

The whale whisperer

In the late 1960s, scientists discovered that whales sing to each other. Dr. Roger Payne's recordings, "Songs of the Humpback Whale," sparked the "Save the Whales" movement. The campaign eventually led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which ended large-scale whaling and saved several whale populations from extinction. Since then, most whale species have recovered.

Imagine if we could not only hear the whales but also understand them? In 2020, Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) was formed with this goal. Biologist David Gruber is at the forefront of this effort.

We wrote about them last fall, and now they have made significant progress.

Communicating via clicks

Sperm whales live in complex, matrilineal societies where females and their offspring form groups while males wander between these groups to mate. These whales are known for their sophisticated social behavior and ability to make collective decisions, which requires advanced communication.

Sperm whales use rhythmic sequences of clicks, called codas, to communicate. Previous research had identified 21 types of codas in sperm whales. Now, CETI, using AI and nearly 9000 recordings, has identified 156 unique coda types.

These include subtle variations in how the whales click, which researchers call "rubato" and "ornamentation." "Rubato" involves a gradual change in coda length, while "ornamentation" is extra clicks added at the end of a coda.

A phonetic alphabet

Research shows that sperm whale communication systems have a combinatorial structure. This means the whales combine different characteristics like rhythm, tempo, rubato, and ornamentation to create a large number of distinct codas. This combinatorial coding allows sperm whales to represent a vast array of possible meanings.

The researchers used a dataset from The Dominica Sperm Whale Project, which included 8719 codas recorded between 2005 and 2018. They found that sperm whales could use different rhythms and tempos, as well as ornamentation and rubato, to create a rich vocabulary of codas.

This work paves the way for future research into whale semantic communication and their potential ability to express complex meanings.

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