Gomera Whistling Language

Silbo on the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, based on Spanish, is one of the best-studied whistled languages. The number of distinctive sounds or phonemes in this languages is a matter of disagreement, varying according to the researcher from two to five vowels and four to nine consonants.


This variation may reflect differences in speakers' abilities as well as in the methods used to elicit contrasts. The work of Meyer clarifies this debate by providing the first statistical analyzes of production for various whistlers as well as psycholinguistic tests of vowel identification.


According to wikipedia, other whistled languages exist or existed in such parts of the world as Turkey (Kuşköy, "Village of the Birds"), France (the village of Aas in the Pyrenees), Mexico (the Mazatecs and Chinantecs of Oaxaca), South America (Pirahã), Asia (the Chepang of Nepal), and New Guinea.


They are especially common and robust today in parts of West Africa, used widely in such populous languages as Yoruba and Ewe. Even French is whistled in some areas of western Africa.