Whale Linguistics

[Arayaz]

AAAAA IT'S HAPPENING

https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20 ... peak-whale

Does anyone here have any other resources about language in whales, dolphins etc.? It's been for a while my favorite emerging field of linguistics. In fact, if I were an adult now with linguistic education, I'd want to be working with them. Anyone else have information about this?

[Salmoneus]

This seems rather over-egged. Playing a noise game - which you can do with a cat or a dog - is not the same as having a conversation. Even if whales can speak, they wouldn't necessarily use speech when playing a turn-taking noise game.


I don't have any resources off-hand but you can search for them fairly straightforwardly, I think.


The only really successful thing I'm aware of is analysis of bottlenose dolphin naming customs.

Short version: dolphins appear to introduce themselves by saying their own name when they meet other dolphins.

Dolphin names appear to consist of a personal name and a matronymic. That is, each dolphin's name consists of two parts, with a personal part and an inherited part. The inherited part is the personal part of their mother's name.

[Visions1]

I remember hearing Orcas have complex "language" like Salmons said, but it's tied to food resources or something = along with naming. I'm having trouble finding this though.
Gosh I wish there was a compilation of stuff like this for animal conlanging. A cetacean conlang would be so cool, and with some other oceanographic world building, you could make some stuff.

[Arayaz]

This seems rather over-egged. Playing a noise game - which you can do with a cat or a dog - is not the same as having a conversation. Even if whales can speak, they wouldn't necessarily use speech when playing a turn-taking noise game.

True, but it's fun nevertheless. And it's obviously not the culmination of the research.

The only really successful thing I'm aware of is analysis of bottlenose dolphin naming customs.

Short version: dolphins appear to introduce themselves by saying their own name when they meet other dolphins.

Dolphin names appear to consist of a personal name and a matronymic. That is, each dolphin's name consists of two parts, with a personal part and an inherited part. The inherited part is the personal part of their mother's name.

This is really cool! Thank you.

Gosh I wish there was a compilation of stuff like this for animal conlanging. A cetacean conlang would be so cool, and with some other oceanographic world building, you could make some stuff.

Yeah, animal conlanging is something I really want to try sometime. Probably for a bird species or such.

[Omzinesý]

Short version: dolphins appear to introduce themselves by saying their own name when they meet other dolphins.

It could be a possible way to say 'Hello' in a human culture, too.
'Hi, I'm Omzinesý!', though I had met the person zillion times and they well knew who I am.

[Arayaz]

Short version: dolphins appear to introduce themselves by saying their own name when they meet other dolphins.

It could be a possible way to say 'Hello' in a human culture, too.
'Hi, I'm Omzinesý!', though I had met the person zillion times and they well knew who I am.

Oooh, what if after this developed, people started clipping their names when used as greetings? So I'd say "Ara" as my own personal greeting, and you'd say "Omzi," and Salmoneus would say "Salm" (heh, that looks like it was formed from S-L-M), or something like that.

And if this was combined with that Russian thing where a shortened version of a name serves as a vocative, greeting someone could just be a shortened version of their name plus a shortened version of your name! So if I were to greet Khemehekis, I would say "Kheme ara!" or something like that, and if he greeted me, he'd say "Ara kheme!" But if I'd never met Khemehekis, I would say "Khemehekis, Arayaz," since he might not've known my first name. Or maybe the old vocative would still be used in formal contexts; if it were, say, an -au suffix, I'd say "Khemehekisau, Arayaz" to introduce myself to him.

Thoughts?

[Visions1]

A Salmoneus Aklaykum. Alaykum A Salmoneam.

I would only shorten it in the context of the names already being known. But for me, this would be a great time to conculture rules about who you tell your name to.

[Omzinesý]

I read https://medium.com/predict/how-complex- ... 77065e313d
Dolphin language seems to be even more complex than that of humans. They can send two messages simultaneously. I once tried to make a conlang like that but it never went far. But it also seems that the names are all we understand about it atm.

But, yes that looks like an interesting topic.