My take is that cetacean communication is, as far as we’ve analysed and attested it, proto-linguistic: it shows some of the features you’d expect from Language¹, but not the complete package.

This case is a good example. It’s showing low order units equivalent to phonemes; but it isn’t showing all that recursive “use blocks to build blocks” structure we see in Language e.g. [gestemes² | phonemes] building morphemes, morphemes building words, words building clauses, clauses building sentences, sentences building utterances, all of those to convey meaning.

Now let me point out some issues with the article. Mostly as correction.

[title] Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels human language, study finds

Correction: “Sperm whales’ communication closely parallels aspects of human language, study finds”. Namely the abstraction of sounds into phonemes, or of gestual articulations into gestemes.

Not only do sperm whale have a form of “alphabet”

No, they don’t. In fact a lot of humans don’t have any sort of alphabet, with or without quotation marks. What they do have is a form of phonemes.

The distinction is important here because phonemes³ pop up instinctively for us, but an alphabet is a rather later learned development of some human societies. And the cetaceans in question likely have it instinctive too, like we did.

Analysis of these clicks shows that the whales can differentiate vowels through the short or elongated clicks or through rising or falling tones, using patterns similar to languages such as Mandarin, Latin and Slovenian.

The video explains this better, but: note Mandarin has phonemic tone but not vowel length, and Latin has phonemic vowel length but no tone. For a better example of a language combining both, check Ancient Greek⁴. (For Slovenian it depends on dialect, some have tone⁴ and some don’t.)

The structure of the whales’ communication has “close parallels in the phonetics and phonology of human languages, suggesting independent evolution”

I think a lot of the “underlying” structure might be actually shared across mammals: it’s the ability to abstract a variable signal into discrete units. The convergent evolution in this case would be only to use that underlying structure with the sounds produced by one’s own species.

Project Ceti has set a goal of being able to comprehend 20 different vocalized expressions, relating to actions such as diving and sleeping, within the next five years.

One thing the article doesn’t mention is the potential for those being community-specific. As in: different vocalisations mean the same thing in different groups of sperm whale.

Side note this is fucking cool, and props to the researchers behind this. I wish the article did a better job conveying their findings. I’m reading the links provided by the article right now, and they look amazing.)

1. I’m using “Language” with a capital “L” to refer to the human faculty. While “language” with a minuscule “l” refers to some system using that faculty; like Mandarin, Latin or Slovenian.
2. Gesteme: the sign language equivalent of phonemes. It’s a set of gestual articulations used in a way that contrasts with other sets of gestual articulations.
3. At least, the process of organising sounds into phonemes. Which sounds will end as which phonemes vary wildly, as those depend on the language, not on Language.
4. Pitch accent used contrastively is a simple type of tone system.