Oct 272012
 

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According to a paper published in Current Biology, a beluga whale named NOC (pronounced “no-see”) learned to mimic the pitch and rhythms of human conversation.[1] This is not easy for a beluga whale to do, so it could not have been an accident.

The embedded video doesn’t provide much audio of the whale. Better audio here:

[audio:https://www.merrilydancingape.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/NOC.mp3]

To me, it sounds like how human conversation taking place above water must sound to a curious eavesdropper below the surface. A whale would not parse human conversation into distinct words or even into individual speakers. Whales are singers, not speakers. They would interpret the conversation as a single, flowing song.

So in this audio clip what is NOC trying to communicate to us?

My guess is he’s simply saying a friendly “Hello!”

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  1. [1]“Spontaneous human speech mimicry by a cetacean”, Current Biology Vol 22 No 20 R860, Sam Ridgway, Donald Carder, Michelle Jeffries, and Mark Todd.
 Posted by on October 27, 2012
   
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