Kitov songs are what people admire so much and what we prefer to listen to in order to relax. The new study of scientists shows that the songs of whales are not just beautiful, they are also the most important and complex form of communication, writes iflscience.

The study shows that the vocalization of some types of whales follow two linguistic laws of effectiveness, also observed in the human language:.

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The authors of the study note that this is good news for scientists who someday hope to talk with whales. Scientists also note that they came to the other way that another innovative study of the singing of whales, which used the methods usually used to study human babies. The results also indicate that the vocalization of whales follow the law of the brevity of Tsipf - this indicates that whales, like people, evolved to make their voice communication more efficient.

The ability to make sounds is very important, but it can also be dangerous. Firstly, the ability to speak can help warn brothers about an impending threat, and secondly, if you publish a lot of noise, this can attract undesirable attention of predators. It is curious that this ability plays an important role for both predators and production.

The Law of Mencrata and the Law of Tsipf are focused on this type of optimization. The first reads how long words or vocalization are more effective if they consist of shorter elements; At the same time, the second states that general and short elements will be used more often in an effective language than longer and rare.

The work of the team under the leadership of Mason Yangbluda from the Institute of Advanced Computing Sciences of the University of Stauni Brook was the first large-scale meta analysis of linguistic efficiency in the communication of whales that covered 16 types and more than 610,000 vocal elements from 24 research. This marked the unprecedented range of types of whaling, and the data was then directly compared with human languages.

The results showed that 11 out of 16 types of whales adhered to the law of Mencrata, and longer elements in their vocalizations were more likely to consist of shorter elements. It is curious that in some species it turned out to be even stronger than in the human language - potentially indicates that whales developed more effective means of communication.

At the same time, the law of reduction of Tsipf, as it turned out, is applicable only to blue and hunchbacked whales, although only five species could be investigated for this law - scientists blame the limitations of data. Humpbacked whales, known for their songs, came out in the first place as a view of the most similar language vocal efficiency, demonstrating both laws in their wonderful music.

It is assumed that the unique cultural evolution probably contributes to the complexity and effectiveness of the song of hunchbacked whales. These whales go through the song " As a rule, the melodies of these animals begin easier, and then become more and more as they spread.

According to Yangblad, the most exciting in the results obtained was that communication develops in a similar way among a wide range of species, many of which make sounds for various reasons. For example, hunchbacked and Greenland whales sing to attract partners, killer whales and dolphins to make sounds to coordinate behavior during hunting and other activities, and sperm whales transmit information about clan affiliation. Despite these differences in the functions, the sequence of communication of these animals, apparently, evolved to increase efficiency over time, as in human languages.

In the second study, scientists studied the notes of the hunchbacked whales of New Caledonia for a seven -year period, which allowed them to determine whether the songs of the regularities of the frequencies of Tsipf contain songs. It was also one of the first to apply the methods of linguistic segmentation to the structure of the songs of the whales, a method that is usually used to study human babies.

The results indicate that the sequences of the songs followed the distribution of the frequencies of Cipf, since several sequences often appeared, while most were rare. This pattern reflects the distribution of frequencies of words that can be seen in human languages.

According to the co-authors of the study, Dr. Ellen Garland from the Biology School of St. Andrews, the discovery of this hidden language structure in the song of the whales was unexpected, but it indicates that such cultural behavior is crucial for understanding the evolution of complex communication in the animal world.

The results also open the intriguing possibility that such a statistical structure will be discovered wherever complex consistent behavior is transmitted culturally.

It is assumed that the results of a new study in the future will allow scientists to better track whales in the ocean, since small -scale differences in songs between populations can allow a quick large -scale assessment of the structure of the population and its coherence.

Previously, Focus wrote that scientists told how many whales are actually able to sing.