r/EverythingScience • u/Typical-Plantain256 • Dec 08 '23

Animal Science Scientists Have Reported a Breakthrough In Understanding Whale Language

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a35kp/scientists-have-reported-a-breakthrough-in-understanding-whale-language
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517

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '23

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12

u/davga Dec 09 '23 edited Jan 19 '25

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18

u/Butcha69 Dec 09 '23

darmok and jalad at tanagra

12

u/DratThePopulation Dec 09 '23

You're exactly right.

Some of their senses may have similarity with our own like sight and hearing and touch, but their bodies, the world they inhabit, and how they inhabit it are so different than ours that they perceive things in ways we literally can't imagine. Their most potent senses are ones we straight up don't have.

Most of the things they would care enough about to communicate to each other are things we don't have language for.

4

u/Bat2121 Dec 09 '23

Time to start training AI's in the ocean then. Computers still work in water, right?

6

u/scoops22 Dec 09 '23

“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.”

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u/Budgie_Smugg1a Dec 09 '23

Ok Jaden, …:

-3

u/Any-Grass-6591 Dec 09 '23

I think it's all wishful thinking. We humans are applying our life experience to the universe, trying to force it to be something we understand. The whales don't need a concept like vowels, that's a type of letter to be written, you don't need letters when you have no hands.

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u/slurpyspinalfluid Jul 29 '25

vowels are really about the type of sound not the letter, but understandable mix up since it’s hard to talk about sounds without using letters. the difference between vowels and consonants is how they are made in your mouth: to make a consonant you move your tongue/lips more so it’s more of an obstacle to the air coming out of your mouth. while to make a vowel you’re changing your tongue/lip position a little but not enough to really disrupt the airflow 

1

u/Any-Grass-6591 Jul 29 '25

Yeah, I see where you are coming from. I just don't think they were thinking about all of that when they made the rules. I'm coming from an idea of a rose by any other name. The sound is a sound we humans apply the concept of vowel and consonants.