Until now, only humans have demonstrated the ability to use such a hierarchical "Humpback songs are not like human language, but elements of language With limited sight and sense of smell in water, marine mammals are more Suzuki and co-authors John Buck and Peter Tyack applied the tools of from the Howard listen to live and recorded whale songs here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The songs of the humpback whale are among the most complex in the animal kingdom. Researchers have now mathematically confirmed that whales have their own syntax that uses sound units to build phrases that can be combined to form songs … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/\nwaill.jpg\")
The songs
\n of the humpback whale<\/a> are among the most complex
\n in the animal kingdom. Researchers have now mathematically confirmed
\n that whales have their own syntax that uses sound units to build phrases
\n that can be combined to form songs that last for hours.<\/p>\n
\n structure of communication. The research, published online in the March
\n 2006 issue of the Journal of
\n the Acoustical Society of America<\/a>, offers
\n a new approach to studying animal communication, although the authors
\n do not claim that humpback whale songs meet the linguistic rigor necessary
\n for a true language.<\/p>\n
\n are seen in their songs," said Ryuji Suzuki, a Howard Hughes Medical
\n Institute (HHMI) predoctoral fellow in neuroscience at Massachusetts
\n Institute of Technology and first author of the paper.<\/p>\n
\n dependent on sound–which travels four times faster in water than air–to
\n communicate. For six months each year, all male humpback whales in a
\n population sing the same song during mating season. Thought to attract
\n females, the song evolves over time.<\/p>\n
\n information theory–a mathematical study of data encoding and transmission–to
\n analyze the complex patterns of moans, cries, and chirps in the whales’
\n songs for clues to the information being conveyed. Buck is an electrical
\n engineer who specializes in signal processing and underwater acoustics
\n at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and Tyack is a biologist
\n at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
\n Hughes Medical Institute press release<\/a><\/p>\n