
On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language - tintinnabula
https://theoutline.com/post/3242/greece-sfyria-whistling-language
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sdrothrock
I saw this a few days ago on a Japanese TV show -- the host was traveling
around the world trying to find places that had never been visited by a
Japanese person before. He found a small town in Greece, but then was
disappointed that there was a Japanese woman living there... but her husband
pointed him toward this island, where he had been born and raised.

They made a big deal about the whistling language and even had several live
demonstrations. The two I remember are:

1\. They ordered drinks at a cafe, then one of the group added on an order for
orange juice -- the owner brought out the complete order.

2\. The host asked them to whistle some specific things to some people across
a valley; when the host went over to question them about the things, they
answered correctly.

~~~
INTPenis
This has been making the rounds lately and also been on swedish TV.

But my impression of it on Swedish TV was completely different from yours.

Firstly when interviewing the whistlers you could tell that it wasn't a
language. It was just a set of sounds they had taught each other for specific
situations.

When they were standing 20 metres from each other and tried to say things like
"take off your hat" or "pick up the shovel" they had to give visual cues after
trying the whistle a few times and failing to get the message across.

So sure, they whistle across the valley, but just to get a very limited
message across that concerns them and their daily work perhaps. Not to have
conversations.

The swedish TV host tried to learn the language and also went to some bar to
order. Maybe they do that as a standing gag there, with the ordering. But he
didn't get it right until he played some school children whistling on his
cellphone.

~~~
muse900
Just to give some context behind it.

The whistling is indeed word for word. In my village some of the over 40's
still exchange whistles from time to time depending on their situation.

I am not the best at whistling, as I didn't have the nerve to learn it all,
nor I communicated like that to my friends and family. Although I am able to
understand some of it and get a few words depending on how clear the other
person is when he is whistling. Some of the older folks whistle their words
very fast, and the ones that can understand them are people that have been
trained to listen to those whistles for most of their lives.

On the articles whistling on soundcloud I was able to understand 5/6 tracks.
The alphabet both in the slow motion and in the fast version is pretty clear.

Disclaimer: I grew up partly in a village in Greece, where they do keep that
form of communication. I recently returned to Greece and am permanently
residing in that village. I am not fluent in the whistling language, but I
know for a fact that there is an alphabet and proper words coming out of
whistling.

~~~
INTPenis
Good insight.

Maybe those old folks grew up together so they have their own whistling
dialect.

The report on Swedish TV did show school children learning the whistling
language so I'd assume they'd all understand eachother. But even so, I just
don't think whistling leaves room for enough nuances to carry on a normal
conversation.

It seems to be more suited for commands or exclamations like "bring me a beer"
or "rain coming".

~~~
vageli
> But even so, I just don't think whistling leaves room for enough nuances to
> carry on a normal conversation.

> But even so, I just don't think rapidly moving air over skin to induce
> vibration leaves room for enough nuances to carry on a normal conversation.

Ultimately, whistling is just the emission of sound. Given that we get by with
throat-sounds, I'd bet that whistling language could be sufficiently developed
to be capable of expressing complex thought. Both speech and whistling are
just moving air.

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kissickas
Relevant "whistled register" of Spanish used in the Canary Islands:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero)

~~~
crznp
If you want to hear the story in song form (and French):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAlnL8JHetY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAlnL8JHetY)

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cetalingua
Here is a question, how do they determine who is whistling to them if they do
not see them? Is whistler's identity encoded in a whistle somehow? And if yes,
then how? In cetacean whistles it is believed that dolphin's identity is not
encoded in a whistle that is why they need signature whistles.

On a side note, whistling language and cetacean whistling are nice examples of
convergent evolution, cetaceans also use whistles for long distance
communication, and use other sounds like burst pulses for short distance
comunication with animals nearby. Sociality is another common component.

Another amazing thing about whistled languages is that they are still closely
linked to their language of origin. If the language is tonal, the whistle will
follow their language melodic structure. If the language is not tonal ,
whistles will try to mimic vowel resonance and convey consonants via how they
whistle, i.e abrupt changes.

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znt
Similar language is also being used in northern Turkey:
[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/whistled-turkish-
tick...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/whistled-turkish-tickles-both-
sides-brain)

~~~
alefnula
Another article about the same thing:
[https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-whistled-
languag...](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-whistled-language-of-
northern-turkey)

------
lillesvin
Just a technicality really, but this is just an encoding of language — like
Morse code or writing — it's not a language of its own.

~~~
oh_sigh
No, this a language. You may be thinking of say written language which is an
encoding of language sounds

~~~
lillesvin
This is most definitely not a language. The language is Greek, as the article
also states: "It’s the same as modern Greek — the grammar, vocabulary, and
sentence structure all remain intact — but the sounds come out in high-pitched
musical notes." So you're just encoding modern Greek in a different way.

You could also call it a register (as the article does) and group it with
shouting and whispering, I don't completely agree with that assertion but
either way it's most certainly not a language on its own, it's a way of
speaking Greek.

> written language which is an encoding of language sounds

That is absolutely false. Written language is _not_ an encoding of language
sounds. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is, but there's a pretty
long way from written language to IPA. Written language is a beast of its own
and it's lagging way behind spoken language, but it's not an encoding of
language sounds. It's a way of encoding language, but phonetics and phonology
has nothing to do with it.

~~~
npapag
The Greek language is very very close to an encoding of language sounds.

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praptak
I've witnessed a demonstration of a whistling "language" when visiting
Tenerife. As far as I could tell the one whistled there was not a language in
its own right but rather an encoding of phonemes into whistling sounds.

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StavrosK
I read the article and then listened to the whistles. Surprisingly (since the
article said otherwise), they were rather intelligible. They don't use one
whistle per letter, which would have been weird, because you don't just say
letters when talking (like "aitch ee ell ell oh", you just say "hello").

Similarly, this just seems to be taking the cadence of speech and whistling
it. I listened to the proverb whistle, and it "clearly" says "η ζωή είναι πολύ
ωραία όταν μπορείς να είσαι αυτάρκης", which I definitely wouldn't have gotten
if I didn't know what they wanted to say, but which is different enough from
the English translation to show that I could actually derive information from
it.

Overall, I don't think you can actually hold a conversation in it, it's
basically like taking speech and encoding it in low-bitrate audio. Lots of
nuance gets lost and you're left with the low-entropy signals, which are hard
to disambiguate unless you know what they're saying.

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jwilk
BBC article on the same topic:

[http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170731-greeces-
disappearin...](http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170731-greeces-disappearing-
whistled-language)

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varjag
Just listened to the clips. Finally I know which language was spoken by R2-D2!

~~~
cat199
kimono is come from the greek

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contingencies
Anyone have a list of the other systems? Himalayan and Myanmar in particular.

~~~
happy-go-lucky
Wikipedia has a list of whistled languages:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language#List_of_whis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language#List_of_whistled_languages)

~~~
tdgs
There's an article in the Greek wikipedia:
[https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A3%CF%86%CF%85%CF%81%CE%B9...](https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A3%CF%86%CF%85%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%87%CF%84%CE%AE_%CE%B3%CE%BB%CF%8E%CF%83%CF%83%CE%B1_%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82_%CE%91%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%AC%CF%82)

