Boerseun Posted September 29, 2006 Report Share Posted September 29, 2006 In the Canary islands, shepherds battle to communicate because of the steep valleys and the low population density. And so... The invented Silbo Gomero! Silbo Gomero is a whistled form of Spanish, and for a sample, download a short MP3 here. The normal human voice can be carried intelligably for around 180-200 meters. A successful Silbo conversation over a still lake at night was recorded at 17 kilometers!!! There must be a considerable break between sentences! Apparently, whistled languages exist all over the world. But with the advent of telephones, communication over these kind of distances isn't a problem any more, and these languages are dying out. There are quite a few pages on the 'net regarding Silbo, and quite a few linguists reckon that whistled languages date back to prehistory! Any "Silbadors" out there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
infamous Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 In the Canary islands, shepherds battle to communicate because of the steep valleys and the low population density. And so... The invented Silbo Gomero! Interesting Bo......; While I was looking for information concerning these peculiar language techniques, I happened upon this very informative web site: http://www.ethnologue.com/home.asp Check it out, it's incredable how many languages exist in our small world.........Infy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
infamous Posted October 3, 2006 Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 Communication not only takes the form of audible sounds, such as the spoken word or the whistling languages that Bo......has referenced. There are other forms such as sign language, and inferential body language that can communicate ideas, feeling and emotions. And let's not forget mathematics, possibly the most abstract language of them all.....................Infy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ganoderma Posted October 3, 2006 Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 The book One River touches on this in south american tribes. not much but i found it pretty interesting. thanks for the links! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBigDog Posted January 28, 2007 Report Share Posted January 28, 2007 I remember seen a documentary on Welsh sheep herders who communicated across valleys with whistles. It was a very local thing. I have always remembered that two minutes of the documentary, but this is the first time I have heard of another such language. Very interesting indeed. Captain von Trapp was not a nut case after all. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Posted January 28, 2007 Report Share Posted January 28, 2007 There is an interesting correlation between the Gomeran whistle and drum communication in African tone language peoples. Both are encodings that try to match the peculiarities of the spoken language. But the Gomeran whistle is close to a 4/5 match easily disambiguated by the context, while drum communication is constrained to a small frozen subset of the base language. I've tried to whistle the silbo gomero, but I guess one has to have been born in the island to be really "fluent" in it. They now teach it to the kids at school there, in order not to lose a very original tool that can prove extremely useful when the cell phone is out of order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.