Each killer whale population has its own language of sound combinations.
what does it mean that each clan speaks its own dialect of language?

A CANADIAN scientist has found that killer whales ‘speak’ a number of

different ‘dialects’ and ‘languages’. Differences between the dialects can

be as small as those that distinguish regional dialects of the English language,

or as large as those between Japanese and English.

The finding puts the whales in an elite club among mammals, along with

humans, some primates and harbour seals. The sounds produced by other mammals

are determined genetically.

John Ford, curator of marine mammals at the Vancouver Public Aquarium,

has been studying the way killer whales communicate for a decade. He says

that killer whale dialects are made of the whistles and calls the animals

use when communicating underwater. They are quite distinct from the high-energy,

sonar-like ‘clicks’ that the whales emit when navigating by ‘echolocation’.

Killer whales are the largest member of the dolphin family. They probably

acquired their ‘killer’ reputation because they have been known to kill

and eat other dolphins and whales, in addition to their usual prey: sea

lions, seals, porpoises and fish. There is no evidence that they have ever

attacked humans.

Killer whales are found throughout the oceans of the world, from the

tropics to the north and south poles. However, the largest concentrations

are found off the coastal regions of cooler countries, such as Iceland and

Canada.

Ford has studied a population of approximately 350 killer whales which

live for the whole year off the coast of British Columbia and northern Washington

State. These whales form two separate communities that roam through adjacent

territories.

The ‘northern’ community, which consists of 16 family groups, or ‘pods’,

ranges from mid-Vancouver Island north to the southeast tip of Alaska. The

members of a smaller ‘southern’ community consisting of three pods wander

from the border of the northern community all the way south into Puget Sound

and Grays Harbour.

Most sounds produced by killer whales are within the range of human

hearing. For this reason, Ford has found it relatively easy to record their

communication. He dangles a hydrophone over the side of the boat. The sounds

are amplified electronically and recorded on a tape recorder.

Ford has been able to categorise the calls – the dialect – of each pod.

He has found that, typically, a pod makes 12 discrete calls. All members

of the pod can, and do, produce the full set of sounds. Ford says that the

system of calls is different, both quantitatively and qualitatively, from

other whales and dolphins.

Most calls are used only within a pod, but sometimes one or more are

common between pods. Ford has found that the dialects are passed from generation

to generation within each pod, and he speculates, therefore, that groups

which share calls probably descended from a common ancestor. The more calls

two pods have in common, the closer the family relationship.

This ‘phylogenetic’ link between dialect and pod has enabled Ford to

estimate how long it takes for a separate dialect to emerge. ‘The rate of

change appears to be very slow’, he says. ‘It (a dialect) must require centuries

to develop.’ The implication is that some dialects could be thousands of

years old.

Up until now, Ford has found little correlation between the behaviour

of killer whales and the calls they make. However, he has found that calls

are faster, higher in pitch, and more frequent when an animal is excited.

Ford believes that taken together the calls form an ‘elaborate code

of pod identity’ which enables whales to identify fellow members of their

pod. This is especially important, he thinks, when collections of pods,

known as ‘superpods’, swim together.

According to Ford, killer whale communication has no grammatical structure.

But he is impressed by its acoustic sophistication. ‘They seem to have a

very highly developed, efficient way of communicating that is something

we can only partly understand at this point,’ he says. ‘I think as time

goes on, we’ll get a much better appreciation of just how remarkably adapted

whales . . . are to their unique environment.’

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12517072-900-science-killer-whales-communicate-in-distinct-dialects/#ixzz675rul5tD

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