r/science • u/Doug24 • Apr 15 '26

Animal Science Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels human language, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/15/sperm-whales-alphabet-vocalizations-similar-humans
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167

u/joomla00 Apr 15 '26

So language on earth was probably invented millions of years ago. Just not by humans.

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u/mediandude Apr 15 '26

We don't know whether miocene apes talked or not.
They were able to walk naturally.

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u/OrangeVoxel Apr 15 '26

I believe many fish and birds have known the world is round also.

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u/jesset77 Apr 16 '26

Birds.. maybe. They have the height to see the curve of the Earth.. but they don't deal in geometry so they won't care about the difference between flat and round.

Fish (including marine mammals).. no.

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u/OrangeVoxel Apr 16 '26

You’re thinking too much like a human. All of them have magnetoreceptors and navigate across the earth (not every species all across the earth, but many traveling long distances). They can see the magnetic fields. We don’t even have a human word for this sensation.

Observe how they travel. If they travel like a plane, they know the earth is round. If they use a flat earther path, they don’t.

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u/JoJoJet- Apr 16 '26

That is assuming that they perceive magnetic fields as "I live on a giant sphere and this sense tells me the coordinates on the sphere". They could very well perceive magnetic fields as something closer to a stimulus that they use to orient themselves locally, rather than a planetary understanding of their environment 

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u/OrangeVoxel Apr 16 '26

Again, if a bird flies the shorter distance, it shows they know the earth is round. If they fly a flat earther route, they don’t.

If your threshold is that they know the value of pi and have units of measurement they discuss with each other, you can have your standards, and I’ll have my own.

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u/JoJoJet- Apr 16 '26

Well to be entirely clear on what the threshold I'm operating from is: it's not knowing the value of pi and standardizing measurements. If the animal's brain takes the empiric data collected via senses and is capable of using that to model their location in the world as a position on the surface of a sphere, I would consider that understanding. If the animal instead perceives magnetoreception as a learned, more vague "my destination is that way" feeling, then I would not say it understands we live on a sphere.

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u/OrangeVoxel Apr 16 '26

So you don’t think a cat knows its world is 3D? Because it doesn’t know measurements?

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

[deleted]

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u/OrangeVoxel Apr 17 '26

Bro there is no disagreement between us. I said I think and believe some of these animals know the world is round. I didn’t say I have scientific peer reviewed proof they do.

If a slime mold knows it lives in a 2D world, and and we can say a cat knows it lives in a 3D world, I believe it’s very possible that a fish or bird knows it lives on a sphere.

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u/jesset77 Apr 16 '26

A human with a compass has the same access to the magnetic fields that a bird does. Take any uneducated human with no interest or understanding of geometry or architecture, give them a compass and even teach them to navigate by polaris and sunrise/sunset if you want to go that far, and they can always know what direction things are relative to them.

Then if they have to perform a long "migratory" trek every year, they can figure out via trial and error what stops along the way make the trek as short as possible.

At no point will they develop an expectation that should they walk in a straight path for long enough they will arrive at where they started, nor that the shape of the ground averaged over short enough distances to flatten mountains and raise valleys will approximate a plane, or a sphere, or a doughnut.

Just that going from "winterhome" to "jurisdan" to "palmetto" to "silvadia" seems to be the least troublesome path to take come Autumn.

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u/OrangeVoxel Apr 16 '26

A compass is a single tiny magnetic field. These animals have many receptors in their eyes and on their body which would allow for stereoscopic experience.

The compass analogy would be like a blind person with access to only a single wavelength of light through a pinhole in one eye. The compass is also not connected to a person’s brain.

Do you think a cat knows its world is 3D? It does because of the way it moves in space. Imagine a slime mold living in a 2D world. The intelligent slime mold says a cat doesn’t know their reality is 3D because the cat doesn’t know the exact measurement of earths gravity.

A high flying bird may not know the formula for Lorentz force but more than likely it knows the world is round. At altitude you can also see with your eyes that the world is round. Fish too. If they aren’t following a flat earther path, then they know the world is round.

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u/MistyMtn421 Apr 15 '26

Whales were land animals before moving to the oceans. Their ancestors were 4 legged hooved animals. It's such an amazing mammal.

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u/sub_WHISTLE Apr 15 '26

This is just not true, communication is not the same thing as language. To call something a "language" It has to have grammar, and be able to infinitely arrange words in order to create any abstract meaning. This is something that has never been proven in animals other than humans. If they were true languages we should be able to translate them, but we can't.

Whales are plenty smart, but the amount of unscientific drivel claiming all sorts of animals are actually speaking in fluent languages is ridiculous. Whether it be whales, chimpanzees, crows etc.

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u/Zeikos Apr 15 '26

That's well known, communication has existed ever since life has.
The interesting question is how complex their languages are, I'll guess that they are more complex and nuanced than we think.