When someone mentions whistling, you might picture the seven dwarfs heading off ready for a day’s work, maybe the dawn chorus that you hear from outside of your bedroom window each morning rings in your ears or your own attempts to whistle a happy tune may even spring to mind. Many people have differing opinions when it comes to whistling - some finding it rude, for some it is a pet peeve, while others believe that it is a nice way to liven up a tedious chore. For a select few, whistling plays a central role in their lives. Dotted across the globe, whistled languages are nestled in regions from Turkey to Mexico, Greece to the foothills of the Himalayas, and beyond.
So, what is a whistled language? Whistled languages are a unique way of communicating, in which whistles are used to imitate the spoken language of an area. Most whistled languages originated out of necessity in isolated areas, such as mountainous regions. These whistles can travel much further than regular speech and do not require as much energy as shouting. There are believed to be as many as seventy whistled languages in the world. With today’s technology, it is no surprise that whistled languages are some of the most endangered languages in the world. What, if any, purpose do they serve in 2020?
Let us take a closer look at one whistled language in a bid to answer this question. Silbo Gomero, also known as El Silbo, is a whistled language of La Gomera, the second smallest of the Canary Islands. According to UNESCO, it is the world’s only fully developed whistled language and was declared a part of Intangible World Heritage in 2009. It is practised among a community of over 22,000 people. As is characteristic of all whistled languages, El Silbo works in harmony with the surrounding landscape. It makes communication over long distances easy, with the whistle travelling up to 3.2km over the island’s deep ravines and steep valleys.
But how does Silbo Gomero work? Unfortunately for polyglots eager to try something a little bit different, it is nowhere near as simple as you might hope. With this whistled language, Spanish is replaced by two whistled vowels and four whistled consonants. Each sound is at a different pitch, making it easier to distinguish between them. The fingers play a huge part in determining the pitch and duration of certain whistles. Simply putting your lips together, blowing, and hoping to produce sounds that you deem to be intelligible will not suffice, I’m afraid!
Experts are not entirely certain about the origin of El Silbo, but it is believed to have been brought from North Africa by the first inhabitants of La Gomera, the Guanches. At the time, it was a whistled version of the language spoken by those peoples, however it was eventually adapted to Spanish during the Spanish settlement in the 16th Century. Back then, Silbo Gomero was a huge asset to farmers situated kilometres away from each other, who could have complex conversations with ease without having to move an inch. According to the BBC, the locals would even use this whistled language to avoid the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard—the oldest form of law enforcement in Spain), who could not understand it.
Unfortunately, economic decline in the 1950s led to many silbadores (whistlers) emigrating to Tenerife or even as far as Venezuela. This resulted in a subsequent decline in the language.
In the 1990s, thanks to action by the people of La Gomera, a revitalisation of El Silbo occurred. In 1999, it became a compulsory school subject in primary schools on the island. Despite this renewed interest in the protection of the language, does El Silbo continue to play a practical role in the 21st Century?
The answer is yes. As is true of most whistled languages, farmers in rural areas still greatly depend on these languages to communicate. Phones are great, but only when you have service! In addition to this, whistled languages are still used in some celebrations and rituals in certain regions. El Silbo now plays a big role in attracting tourists to La Gomera as well, although some residents are apprehensive about this. Archaeologist Hernandez Marrero among them, stating that El Silbo “risks becoming a cliché, like the flower necklaces given to tourists in Hawaii”. Aside from tourism, some linguists, including Julien Meyer of the University of Grenoble, also believe that whistled languages could help us gain a better understanding of the development and origins of language. There are even theories rooted in the idea that early whistled languages were a forerunner of the spoken languages that we know and love today.
Whistled languages may not serve the same purpose as they once did, but they are certainly of great linguistic and cultural importance in this Digital Age. Whether these incredible languages will survive in the future, we cannot be certain. However, one thing is for sure, if technology vanished tomorrow, we all know who would be able to keep in contact, and slick as a whistle at that!
Comments