Review of the book “The Language of Whales”

An intelligent treatise on the nature of man, animals, and language

The book is told in the first person. But Mostel also lets many of the experts he visited as part of his research give their opinions. Like Roger Payne, who, along with his colleague Scott McVay, discovered and popularized the songs of humpback whales in the 1960s, contributing greatly to their protection. Or anatomist Joy Reidenberg, who literally shows the author what’s inside a whale. Mostil reflects cleverly on his encounters: he shows the challenges faced by people studying other species, questions some approaches, but also frequently revisits his own ideas about language and about whales and their abilities.

Unsurprisingly, the author also writes about the darker aspects of the relationship between humans and whales. According to him, about three million mammals were killed in the twentieth century alone – a sad record for hunting animals. Even then, there were stories of cooperation between humans and whales, which point to the amazing capabilities of whales: for example, orca “Old Tom” and his clan are said to have aided whalers on the southeastern coast of Australia for decades between 1860 and 1930 when he helped catch whales. baleen. In return, the hunters are said to have given them the tongues and lips of the animals they killed.

Today, the research is further and gradually gaining deeper insights into the complex social lives of whales and dolphins among them. Species like the sperm whale, for example, communicate within their clan using complex clicking sounds, called codons, that sound different from clan to clan. Researchers are now using new technologies to record the sounds and movements of sperm whales and decode the resulting huge amounts of data with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning – with the hope of being able to engage in dialogue with the animals. day.