Globe > Europe > Spain > The Whistling Island
The Whistling Island
On La Gomera, "Silbadors" communicate in a 4,000-word language of whistles
Category Anomalous Islands, Rites and Rituals
On the small mountainous island of La Gomera, one of the Canaries, the children speak to each other from miles apart using one of the most unusual languages in the world. Known as Silbo, the whistling language of Gomera Island has a vocabulary of over 4,000 words, and is used by "Silbadors" to send messages across the island's high peaks and deep valleys.
El Silbo has a well-known history. The original inhabitants of La Gomera were believed to be immigrants from part of what is now Mauritania, and they spoke a tonal language. Tones were so important to the phonology of the language that one could speak simple sentences with just the tones and not lose meaning. This rudimentary system evolved to include glides and stops to imitate consonants, which let whistlers convey more complex phrases. In the 16th century, when the Spaniards conquered the island, the natives were driven to extinction. The Spanish immigrants adapted the Gomeran whistle to their native Spanish. Spanish does not have phonologically significant tones, so pitch variations are used to represent vowels. The system worked great for the shepherds and farmers. In the 1990's, when modernization brought the number of whistlers to a dangerous nadir, the government of La Gomera made el Silbo a mandatory subject for elementary students, which successfully sparked a whistling renaissance.
Though Silbo was on the verge of extinction in the 1990s, the Gomerans have made a concerted effort to revive their language by adding it to the public school curriculum. Today 3,000 schoolchildren are in the process of learning it. On the last day of September 2009, UNESCO gave protected cultural status to El Silbo, to further protect the culture.
See an error? Know more? Edit this place.
- Website Cartoon Characters Random Stuff
- Address La Gomera, Spain
Comments
-
Wow, Whistling as a language, that really is quite fascinating, like the comment above mine said it is cool amongst all our high tech communication these days, that something like can still last. I think the world could be even more beautiful if cultures were not forced to change their ways and could hold onto traditions like these. It is such as shame that globalization can have such damaging effects on societies and cultures, all for the sake of profits!
-
Anonymous
August 31, 2009
On the Naviera-Armas ferry from Tenerife to La Gomera, the safety instructios are given through loudspeakers in Spanish, English... and Silbo. -
I think that it's absolutely fascinating that this language has survived in a world that's so obsessed with ultra advanced long distance communication like email and mobile phones. Personally I think that the world was a nicer and more interesting place when these traditions were common place. I am very glad that they have kept this language going. I am traveling to the Canaries in September and will see if I can find out a bit more or even listen to this unusual language. I will return to report back. Thanks, Chloe (from <a href="http://babysteriliseruk.co.uk/">baby steriliser</a> in the UK)
-
Anonymous
August 26, 2009
Guanches were not Spanish immigrants. Guanches were the original inhabitants of the island of Tenerife and by extension, the term is generalized for all the original inhabitants of the Canaries. The whistling language of Gomera Island has not a vocabulary of over 4,000 words. The whistling language is a translation of the phonetics of a given language (normally Spanish) into whistles, so it has the same number of words as the language being used as base.
Post a Comment