How much can we translate whale song?

I do like your questions Alecia! They remind me of questions I've asked when I was a much younger self! We currently cannot translate whale song at the moment. We know that whale song is different from family to family and region to region. We also know that all sperm whales share the same (base) language. read more

A collection of two sub-phrases is a phrase. A whale will typically repeat the same phrase over and over for two to four minutes. This is known as a theme. A collection of themes is known as a song. The whale will repeat the same song, which last up to 30 or so minutes, over and over again over the course of hours or even days. read more

A whale song is the creation of a pattern of predictable of sounds that are created by large baleen whales such as the humpback whale and blue whale (the blue whale is the largest animal in the world) in which these patterns resemble the notes of a song. read more