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I am! :) Great to “see” you again haha

Our perspective: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Convergent evolution in whale and human vocal culturesThe complex songs of humpback whales conform to fundamental laws of languagewww.science.org

The original study: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Whale song shows language-like statistical structureHumpback whale song is a culturally transmitted behavior. Human language, which is also culturally transmitted, has statistically coherent parts whose frequency distribution follows a power law. These...www.science.org

That would be super interesting to check out! Idk about baleen whales, but in toothed whales the Cephalorhynchus genus didn’t exhibit Menzerath’s law, and they are acoustically cryptic too

Notably, humpback whales exhibit both laws across two levels of analysis—notes within phrases and phrases within songs. Overall, the results of this study suggest that the vocalizations of many whale species have undergone compression for increased efficiency in time!

✅ 11 of 16 whale species followed Menzerath’s Law—sometimes with stronger effects than human speech. ✅ 2 of 5 species (humpback & blue whales) followed Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation. ✅ Many whales also shorten sounds toward the end of sequences—the opposite of human language.

Two key linguistic laws predict efficiency: 📏 Menzerath’s Law: Longer sequences tend to have shorter elements. ✂️ Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation: More frequently used elements tend to be shorter. Do these apply to whales? I analyzed vocal sequences from 16 species to find out.

Language and animal communication both balance costs and benefits. Producing sound takes energy, and longer signals can attract predators. So, selection should favor efficiency—conveying information as concisely as possible.

Thx for sharing @kylecranmer.bsky.social!

Idk you should reach out to the hiring committee, I’m just boosting it

Oh and Jeff Andrews!

Thx for boosting Fabian!!

Oh wow this looks really interesting, need to give it a good read, it also seems quite strong to me