UC Berkeley and Project CETI find speech-like sperm whale codas
Technology
Turns out, sperm whales could be having way more complex conversations than we realized.
A new study from Project CETI and UC Berkeley looked at nearly 4,000 whale click patterns, called codas, from the Caribbean and found they have structures a lot like the sounds in our own speech.
Researchers find 'a-codas' and 'i-codas' vowel-like
Researchers spotted two main types of codas, dubbed "a-codas" and "i-codas," which work kind of like vowels for whales.
These clicks even change length and pattern, showing off some real flexibility, just like how humans mix up sounds when we talk.
Still, scientists haven't cracked any actual "words" or meanings yet, so while it's not exactly a language by our standards, it does show whales are way smarter communicators than we used to think.