{"id":189381,"date":"2024-05-14T13:22:57","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T18:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/scientists-discover-a-phonetic-alphabet-used-by-sperm-whales-moving-one-step-closer-to-decoding-their-chatter"},"modified":"2024-05-14T13:22:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T18:22:57","slug":"scientists-discover-a-phonetic-alphabet-used-by-sperm-whales-moving-one-step-closer-to-decoding-their-chatter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/scientists-discover-a-phonetic-alphabet-used-by-sperm-whales-moving-one-step-closer-to-decoding-their-chatter","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Discover a \u2018Phonetic Alphabet\u2019 Used by Sperm Whales, Moving One Step Closer to Decoding Their Chatter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VvM5QElkLbA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sperm whales rattle off a series of rapid-fire clicks that researchers have named \u201ccodas.\u201d Each coda consists of between three and 40 clicks. In addition to changing the number of clicks they make in quick succession, whales often speed up or slow down the tempo of each coda\u2014researchers call this \u201crubato.\u201d Sometimes, they add an extra \u201cclick\u201d at the end of a coda, which scientists call \u201cornamentation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the end, the team identified 156 distinct codas, each with its own rubato, ornamentation, tempo and rhythm. On their own, these codas may simply be meaningless sounds. But when combined, they could add up to something akin to syllables, words or even sentences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re now starting to find the first building blocks of whale language,\u201d says study co-author <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davidgruber.com\/\">David Gruber<\/a>, a marine biologist and the founder of Project CETI, to the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/sperm-whale-language-talk-clicks-a94df8e07b129f19917437fcb85e7655\">Associated Press<\/a>\u2019 Maria Cheng.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sperm whales rattle off a series of rapid-fire clicks that researchers have named \u201ccodas.\u201d Each coda consists of between three and 40 clicks. In addition to changing the number of clicks they make in quick succession, whales often speed up or slow down the tempo of each coda\u2014researchers call this \u201crubato.\u201d Sometimes, they add an [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}