idk theres promising research on linguistic cadence of many whale species. my personal opinion is that they are sapient to some degree, they even have been shown to adapt to really complex new stressors in the environment caused by us very fast, and have demonstrated cultural memories and sharing of information. i also kinda feel like most apes are sapient in some fashion, like yeah maybe as smart as an 8 year old or something but terrible at communication which limits them severely