How to Speak Whale is an unforgettable look at how close we truly are to communicating with another species – and how doing so might change our world. Discover more.
Can We Talk to Whales?
Researchers believe that artificial intelligence may allow us to speak to other species.
The phonology of sperm whale coda vowels
Abstract. Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) communicate using series of clicks known as codas. In previous research, sperm whale codas have been shown
Whale Hunting
Discovering the hidden stories of how the world really works — by Project Brazen.
Whales' Bubble Net Fishing | Nature's Great Events | BBC Earth
David Rothenberg playing with Humpback whales, excerpt from French film
Home
Orca Network’s Whale Sighting and Education Project encourages observation of not just orcas, but all cetaceans that call the Salish Sea home. Awareness of our amazing wild neighbors helps foster stewardship and inspire action to protect critical habitat – while collated sightings data provides invaluable and ongoing insight.
Landing Page
Orcasound connects your headphones to live hydrophones (underwater microphones), your ears to an ocean of sound. Help us explore and conserve marine life around the globe, starting with studying and saving the Southern Resident killer whales of the Pacific Northwest. As an Orcasound community scientist, you can listen for whales or learn more about marine bioacoustics.
Happywhale
Send us your whale photos, we’ll identify the individuals for fun and for science. We'll share with you what we find!
The evolution of syntactic communication
Animal communication is typically non-syntactic, which means that signals refer to whole situations1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Human language is syntactic, and signals consist of discrete components that have their own meaning8. Syntax is a prerequisite for taking advantage of combinatorics, that is, “making infinite use of finite means”9,10,11. The vast expressive power of human language would be impossible without syntax, and the transition from non-syntactic to syntactic communication was an essential step in the evolution of human language12,13,14,15,16. We aim to understand the evolutionary dynamics of this transition and to analyse how natural selection can guide it. Here we present a model for the population dynamics of language evolution, define the basic reproductive ratio of words and calculate the maximum size of a lexicon. Syntax allows larger repertoires and the possibility to formulate messages that have not been learned beforehand. Nevertheless, according to our model natural selection can only favour the emergence of syntax if the number of required signals exceeds a threshold value. This result might explain why only humans evolved syntactic communication and hence complex language.
We Have Always Been Action TheoristsToward a Critical Theory of Language for the Era of “Large Language Models”
Scholars of literature and culture understandably place themselves among the world’s premiere experts on matters of language. But they also know that fields like linguistics and communication have their own ways of studying how people express themselves through speech and written media. A key difference concerns the theories and methodologies...
Stephen Krashen: Language Acquisition and Comprehensible Input
Creatures of Story and Song | Reaktion Books
Discover why a beaver was said to bite off its own testicles, why the baleen of a right whale was prized by medieval knights or why you should give your crush the gift of a great auk.Creatures of Story and Song pieces together evocative legends, poems and historical accounts from a thousand years of history […]
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
Check out Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? - Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition--in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos--to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we've underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal--and human--intelligence. by Dr Frans de Waal on Bookshop.org US!
Michael R. Crusoe (@biocrusoe@fairpoints.social)
Oh, I like this part > No AI-generated text in human-to-human communication > When our maintainers volunteer their time to review your issue, PR, or proposal, they do not want to talk to a machine. This is a basic principle of respect. https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@godotengine/116839550229253906
#IC2S2 keynote Gasper Begus giving a fascinating talk about analyzing languages spoken by whales @ic2s2.bsky.social
