From Clicks to Vowels: How Sperm Whales’ Language Is Far More Human Than We Thought

sperm whale vowels do not just look like human vowels. They also behave like them.

We found several parallels. Like in Latin, whales have short and long vowels. Like in Slovenian, some vowels prefer particular tones. Like in human language, there’s a lot of coarticulation (a process when you say “tense” but the word sounds like “tents”).

More on the work learning whale speech here. Is this really happening?

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