Talking Whales
Oct. 23rd, 2012 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerHere's a cool link for you today: Beluga Whale "Makes Human-like Sounds" It's about a beluga whale which, yes, taught itself to make human-like noises. And there's audio! And indeed, it sounds very human-like.
Not, mind you, intelligibly human-like yet. There are no actual words. But after all, babies don't start with actual words either; they, like the whale, babble.
Maybe someday we'll be able chat with whales! Using words! Wouldn't that be amazing? It would be even cooler than sign language with apes. Because whales. Talking whales. We could exchange poetry! (You know whales must have poetry.) Also possibly apologize for that whole whaling thing in the nineteenth century.
English may have too many consonant strings to be a good candidate for interspecies communication. Maybe Spanish or Japanese?
Not, mind you, intelligibly human-like yet. There are no actual words. But after all, babies don't start with actual words either; they, like the whale, babble.
Maybe someday we'll be able chat with whales! Using words! Wouldn't that be amazing? It would be even cooler than sign language with apes. Because whales. Talking whales. We could exchange poetry! (You know whales must have poetry.) Also possibly apologize for that whole whaling thing in the nineteenth century.
English may have too many consonant strings to be a good candidate for interspecies communication. Maybe Spanish or Japanese?
