Posted on 10/22/2012 5:28:43 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
SAN DIEGO (AP) — It could be the muffled sound of singing in the shower or that sing-songy indecipherable voice from the Muppets' Swedish Chef.
Surprisingly, scientists said the audio they captured was a whale imitating people. In fact, the whale song sounded so eerily human that divers initially thought it was a human voice.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
The whale was heard saying : “Vote Romney-Ryan”
“Don’t harpoon me, bro!”
“The Whale Who Sang at the Met”
Disney cartoon c. 1946, featuring Nelson Eddy.
I swear to you......sounds EXACTLY like one of those pathetic OWS’ers with a megaphone. Seriously.
Reminds me of that Far Side cartoon where the two scientists are writing on a white board what the dolphins are saying.
****“The Whale Who Sang at the Met”****
When I read this thread I thought of that cartoon. Great minds think alike. Wonder where I lost mine.
I think it sounds like someone using a kazoo.
You should hear one of our cats, though. He says “hello” and “mama” in the middle of the night when he wants our attention. He’s very close to learning how to turn the door knob, and if we had one with a pull, he’d have mastered that already, I have no doubt.
If the Cid Campeador is your hero, you haven’t lost your mind, you’ve kept it while the world goes mad.
Deus vult!
I used to have a smart cat who very clearly said, “Me!” Never “meow,” only “me.” He mastered doorknobs. He could also defeat any and all “cat proof” timed feeders we challenged him with - usually within five minutes. He also seemed to understand almost everything we said. He certainly understood anything having to do with food. Even if we tried to deadpan the word into the middle of an unrelated sentence, his head would whip around and he’d say, “Me?”
So, it doesn’t surprise me at all that a whale (which has a much larger brain than a cat) would so eerily imitate human speech.
Well, it's imitative. Where you think "creepy", I think "impressive", and what impressed me was the musicality and lilt of the "song", as whale vocalizations have been called. But they are called songs for a reason, and I have to suppose that these elements are part of our common evolutionary heritage, inherent in the song that the whale modified to make the imitation.
My old friend, Crookedtail, would say milk when I opened the fridge ... he craved milk, even watered down so he didn’t have gastric ‘airs’ from milk. He was a very brainy cat, learning things the first time around, like to slap the little can I hund on the door for him to let me know when he wanted outside. He would watch something and then do it, like ringing the door bell to get attention. He had to jump slightly from stretched on hide legs, but he would do it. That cat had me well trained as his staff. I swear he even tried to say tuna when I would take a can from the pantry, any can ... I guess he never learned to read.
It sort of sounded like maybe what humans actually sound like to the whale (or to any species without human/human-like speech) - sort of garbled.
Caretakers at the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada previously said they heard one of the white whales say its name.
* * * * *
I spent a day at the Vancouver Aquarium a number of years ago, and ended up hanging out most of the afternoon with the Beluga whales, because they were SO intelligent looking. One in particular kept coming up to the glass in front of me and really eyeing me ... I tell you, that whale looked smarter than a lot of people I’ve known! I wouldn’t be surprised if they might try to mimic human speech. Darned smart animals.
As for all the talking cats on this thread (and why is it always talking cats, not talking dogs?), we had our own “talking” cat. Our girl Nocturne was half Siamese, all black, very tiny and smart as a whip. Nocky had all the other cats in the household absolutely whipped, though she weighed only 5 lbs. Over the years, she learned to say (and use appropriately) the following: Mama (for my mom), my name (I have a one-syllable name), Gamma (for my grandmother), and “I want OUT!” when she went into heat (for some silly reason my parents never did get poor Nocky fixed). She was an incredible character and having her there was like having another human around. I am convinced she was as smart as a three-year-old child.
The wonderful comedian Sid Ceasar used to have a bit where he spoke nonsense that sounded like German or Japanese or French. As an English speaker, I’ve often wondered what a similar act would sound like mimicking English.
Perhaps college lectures or political speeches are as close as I can come.
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