For all linguistic diversity in the world, human language still meets some universal models. These are deeper than grammar and syntax; They are rooted in statistical words that we often use some words and how long these words are usually. Think of them built guards to easily learn and use the language.
And now scientists have found some of the same pattern Whale vocalizations. Two new studies published this week are shown, despite the broad evolutionary distance between us, there have been similar solutions to communicate human and whales through sound. “It is not about human language a fenomenon we need to think of other communication systems, but think about what he shares with them,” says Inbal Arnon, a professor of psychology at the University of Jerusalem Professor of Psychology and a study.
Arnon and his colleague, the paper published on Thursday Science, Humpback Bally Bale Recordings were analyzed the recordings of the Humpback Whale in the South Pacific, and found closely attached to a principle called Zipf Frequency Act. It is seen in frequencies to use the word, this characteristic of human language: the most common word in any language is the second most common, as many times as the third most common, and so on.
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Listen to Humpback Whale songs:
Before examining the recordings, the researchers had to identify the segments similar to words (although important, without semantic significance) other unhappiness, shouts and screams. They found it in the same situation like a newborn child, in such a natural way, they turned towards guidance. Human babies “they get a continuous acoustic sign,” Arnon says, “and they need to figure out where the words are.”
Child strategy It is simple: Listen to unexpected combinations of sounds in adult speech. When you identify one, you probably found a limit between The word, because these regular transitions will happen less within words.
It can be horrible, the same view of Humpbacks. When researchers segmented whales songs “Transition probabilitiesLike small children, ZIPF’s frequency law adapts like a glove. On the other hand, the data elements of the data were arbitrarily suggested that the results of the random choice were never had a random choice. Santa Andrews University Expert in Scotland. “It was the opportunity to get to know these structures. Do we think we would do it? No hell.”
Why would the same communication behavior be evolved among whales and humans, his last ordinary ancestor was a shameless creature that lived about 100 million years ago? Well, dividing the words according to ZIPF frequency law, or zipfia distribution, seems Help Child Support Language. “When things are organized that way, they are learning better,” says Simon Kirby, the cognitive and new author of the New Edinburgh University scientist Science paper.
In other words, the structure of the language is largely a product that passes from one generation to another. Therefore, the team reasoned that Zipf frequency law has not appeared in humans, but anywhere else, however, any other signales are learning (transmitted from one individual to another). The group includes what Kirby calls “strange, a bunch of species”. Songbirds, bats, non-primated, elephants, stamps, dolphins and whales. All other animals, other animals that go to fogs to dogs, are believed to be made through genetically scheduled signals.
Now, whales, at least share the key component of our communication system, we thought we were not growing among scientists. Rather, our linguistic ability is located on a smorgasbord of physical and cognitive characteristics, many of which spread throughout the animal kingdom.
Published in separate paper Science advances On Wednesday, Mason Youngblood, Stony Brook found a postdoctor friend at the University Two more features in the vocalizations of the whale: Break law, when applied to the human language, it states that it is usually more common, usually shorter, and vice versa. The other was the law of Menzerrat, which says it is a more linguistic language (such as a sentence), it is shorter in its medium component (such as clauses of a sentence).
The two models were particularly strong in the Humpback song, and both appeared in other different species. These laws are about efficiency. They describe how animals are maximized “the amount of information that maximize the least amount of time,” says young people.
As it may be human language comparisons, researchers oppose too much reading in these parallels. “The song of the whale is not a language,” says Garland are blurred, most experts agree that the “words of the animal” does not agree that the semantic meaning. (Music is also not, however, it also seems ZIPF’s frequency law.)
In terms of similarity, however, they are striking. Luke Rendell, the University of San Andrews, could not be involved in research, whether these discoveries can make a way to “how they can make a way.” This is the range of complex communications in any species They gave us.
According to the Token, Kirby suggests a kind of trace of these culturally evolved systems (perhaps, where animals crossed the cultural learning threshold. “It is probably a key feature of the organization of cognitive systems”, added.
