January 5, 2005
From the BBC, The Telegraph, and CNN. Schoolchildren are being taught their ancient whistled language, to save it from extinction.
The language is called Silbo Gomero, and is only heard on the Canary Island of La Gomera, off the coast of Morocco.
Pouring from a classroom window of the primary school in San Sebástian came a sound similar to the chirping of caged song birds.
A glance inside the room, however, revealed not an aviary but a room full of eight-year-olds, each with a knuckle in their mouth, whistling the islanders' ancient language of silbo.
The language evolved as a means of communicating across the island's jagged terrain thousands of years ago. La Gomera, a lump of volcanic rock west of Tenerife, is riven by barrancos (ravines) that make communication of any kind arduous. Silbo is thought to have arrived with settlers from the Atlas mountains of North Africa 2,500 years ago and it is far more complex than a few simple signals.
Whistled Silbo Gomero, with spoken-language-like intonation, can be heard here and here.
Via Mirabilis.ca
Update:
Studies how the brain of Spanish speakers and Silbo speakers processes the language.
