Researchers at the University of St Andrews have identified a language-like structure in humpback whale songs — a pattern once thought to be unique to humans. The finding suggests whale songs are culturally transmitted: whales teach each other their communication systems. Over eight years, the team recorded humpback songs off New Caledonia. When analyzing the recordings, they used methods normally applied to studying how infants learn language.
The key insight comes from a universal pattern in human languages: a few words occur very often while most words appear rarely. That predictability helps infants learn — they track sequences of sounds, notice surprising moments, and use them to find word boundaries. The researchers found that whale songs also contain sequences that follow the same predictable pattern, something not previously observed in any other animal.
Dr. Ellen Garland of the University of St Andrews, who led the study, said, “Finding this hidden linguistic structure in whale songs was unexpected, but it strongly suggests that cultural transmission is important for understanding the evolution of complex communication in the animal kingdom.” Professor Simon Kirby of the University of Edinburgh, a co-author, added, “These results challenge assumptions about the uniqueness of human language and reveal deep commonalities between species that are evolutionarily distant.” The findings were published in the journal Science.
The project brought together linguists, developmental specialists, behavioral ecologists, and marine biologists from the University of St Andrews; the University of Edinburgh (UK); the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel); the New Caledonia Research Institute; Griffith University (Australia); and the University of Auckland (New Zealand).
