The most common word is used twice as often as the second most common word, three times as often as the third most common ...

Language has long been considered a uniquely human trait, with features that mark it out as distinct from the communication ...

The animals’ complex songs share structural patterns with human language that may make them easier for whales to learn, a new ...

The sounds that make up humpback whale songs follow some of the same statistical rules seen in human languages, which may be ...

Zipf’s law of abbreviation was only found to apply to blue whales and humpback whales, though only five species could be ...

"Using insights and methods from how babies learn language allowed us to discover previously undetected structure in whale ...

Researchers say they've discovered that humpback whale song is passed down over the years and changes — something it has in common with human language. (Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images ...

Humpback whale songs share structural similarities with human language, suggesting complex communication patterns.

Researchers identified statistically coherent patterns in whale song that may be a signature of cultural learning.

How to search for the pattern in humpback whale song, however, wasn’t immediately clear. First, the researchers had to identify the units within the song that would be equivalent to human words.

There's a reason "antidisestablishmentarianism" is more a piece of trivia than vital to the English language. Because a word ...