| Whistle while you work |
| Whistling is often used to carry tunes and to get an individuals attention. In the Canary Islands off of West Africa and Spain, whistling is used much more elaborately. Silbo Gomero is a language based entirely on whistling with no spoken words. This language was developed as a means of communication across the hilly terrain of La Gomera, and can be heard up to two miles away. Silbo is not the only whistled language; there are others that are concentrated geographically around Greece, Turkey, China and Mexico.
Silbo comes from the Spanish verb silbar, to whistle, and features four "vowels" and four consonants that can be used together to form more than 4000 words. The language is dying out slowly due to other means of communication but the islanders have started a program that requires all students to spend 25 minutes a week learning or practicing Silbo. Adapted from an article on CNN.com by the associated press |
| Released: 3/18/2004 |