Persuading the BBC not to describe sperm whale clicks as “language” in their Blue Planet II series was the highlight of my science communication career. Why?

A lot of complex communication is going on in cetaceans, much of which we still don’t understand. However, I am convinced that we should drop the stifling and anthropocentric focus on language. It crowds out other perspectives on what is going on – for example, the relationship between rhythm-based communication and music might be a better way to understand the bonding function of coda synchrony in sperm whales.

We should be wary of ranking species on a single dimension relative to humans, as if all evolution is a path to something like us (much like early anthropologists ranked societies by their progress toward western “perfection”). Instead, let’s take ourselves off the top of the ladder and see other animals as distinct branches of an evolutionary tree.

I find great logic in the argument of understanding animal communications in relation to the animals themselves rather than their relation to us.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That is cool.

You might enjoy Adrian Tchaikovsky's series "Children of Time". It's a fascinating sci-fi series that examines how other species might communicate and a fantastic read (or listen).

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

That’s interesting. I’ll check it out.