We Just Discovered Whales Speak Like Humans

Relevant Paper:
Article on the 20 Minute Whale Conversation

0:00 Do Whales Have Language?
1:24 What Defines Language?
6:17 Can We Teach Whales English - And other 60s Questions
8:26 How We Finally Learned to Speak Whale
13:48 Do We Know What Whales Are Talking About?

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[DrBenMiles]

Could any Northerners help translate the clip at 3:33 ?

[suzannewhitaker]

I was in the water in Maui and someone said, "If you stick your head under the water you can hear the Whales taking." I had been planning to keep my hair dry because we were going to a special lunch. But now I had to go under! Yup, you could hear them. Someone said. "I wonder what they are saying?" I said, "They are saying, 'If you stick your head out of the water you can hear the humans talking.'"

[WiseWeeabo]

I imagine aliens with a bunch of human recordings going "nah, they're not saying anything complex, it's just a mating ritual".

[Hitchpster]

It moves me to tears to think one day we might successfully communicate with other species like whales, dolphins, possibly aliens, and the ultimate frontier, Geordies from Newcastle.

[Deivid_C]

those whales probably thought: "You seem like a cool fella there, but damn you have poor grammar." LOL

[dr.s.p.]

While serving on a submarine and crossing the Atlantic, we used to hear many whales. Clicks, groans, whistles and a sound that sounded like an old creaking door. It was fascinating to sit there and listen in awe.

[amateurmakingmistakes]

Yes, whales can also count. My anecdotal experience: in July of 2009, I went to one of my favourite surf spots, Anzacs, on Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia and I was dismayed to see a large crowd on the sand dunes, thinking that there was either a shark attack or a drowning. Then I saw the whale. A person nearby told me that it had been there for a while already. I spent half an hour photographing it then went for my surf. I happened to be the closest surfer to it - probably something like 70 metres or yards away. Knowing that they have excellent hearing, I slapped the water as hard as I could, once. The whale slapped its fin once. I then slapped the water twice. The whale slapped its fin twice! Of course, I then slapped the water three times and yes, the whale slapped its fin three times! No further questions, Your Honour!
I then spent another half hour or so photographing the whale, with surfers in the foreground. This whale was obviously checking out us humans. Although the waves were pretty small, that was one of my favourite surfing experiences!

[xyzxyzxyzxyzxyzxyz]

Now we only need a Rosetta whale speaking in both whale and Greek...

[thesentientape]

Twayne the whale immediately returned to his family and told them the story of an invisible whale near Alaska only to be ridiculed

[KadirPeker]

As someone who dabbles in speech recognition research, I can say this was an excellent intro to some of the basic ideas, very efficient and effective.

[IanMorav]

As a whale graduated in Human language, I can confirm, 100%real

[MWSin]

A translation of the conversation:

Researchers: Twain.
Twain: What?
Researchers: Twain.
Twain: What?
Researchers: Twain.
Twain: WHAT?!?
Researchers: Danger Zone.

[AndrewJohnson-oyoj]

When I was learning Norwegian and asked my uncle if he could repeat himself more slowly and he replied "no." It was only later that I learned that in colloquial Bokmol, cadence denotes emotional content.

[zackerychambers]

The ability to start distinguishing individual words in a sentence is a wild transition when learning a new language.

[moritzgoldi]

This is freaking amazing. I can't believe we'll actually be able to talk to whales in a couple years. Imagine translating our movies to whale and showing them in a underwater whale cinema.
The whole waiting exact delays thing could also be something that could help them triangulate distances / positions of each other. Or it is to ensure that whales don't talk over each other - because they can communicate over vast distances there could be timing aspects that are uncommon to our languages that all developed in face to face use.

[PuppetsToxin]

Not to be that guy but I’m gonna be that guy: Better Help, has not only been deemed questionable by actual licensed therapists, but has also been outed publicly in the court of law for selling people’s personal information AND lying about doing so. They also specifically target an older audience when it comes to YouTube analytics in hopes to get through to people that don’t know how to use the internet effectively to find any of the previously said information out. So yeah, definitely not a great company.

Anyways the video was pretty good aside from that

[FTATF]

Im a charter boat captain, i see humpback whales all the time. I was playing whalesongs over my speakers to illicit a response from whales with success long before these scientists were. I did it for a few reasons. Sometimes i think they aren't paying attention, or maybe they're sleeping, and i worried about a collision of some sort when i was on anchor, and i also just thought it was fun. Also, i think they like certain songs like human songs, it seems like they will come closer if they like your music. Orcas are different way way smarter than humpbacks. If you think that humpbacks are talking then orcas would be writing if they had thumbs

[girlofanimation]

If we figure it out, we'll be able to decode the dolphins' warning if extraterrestrials decide to build a highway through our solar system.

[kras_mazov]

We FINALLY Understand How To Speak Whale: We have no idea.

[Negative_Clover]

When a human speaks a language another human doesn't speak. Its very interesting and worth checking out. We often repeat sounds we don't understand the meaning of.