Mehrsprachigkeit in Europa: Plurilinguismo in Europa ... - EURAC

Bettina Gartner, Oliver Streiter
2. Whistled languages: simple codes or sophisticated systems?
Whistled languages are not a fully autonomous communication system such as sign languages.
To the contrary, they are strongly connected to the local language – in the way that the spoken
words are “translated” into whistles. The vocabulary, the grammar and the phonology (at least
regarding the rhythm of a sentence) are more or less maintained. In non-tonal languages the
whistles mimic the normal movements of the tongue. The “i” for example is sounding higher
than the “a” – as well as the tongue is lying higher in the mouth when forming the “i” than when
forming the “a”. According to Meyer (2005) vowels in whistled non-tonal languages are lying in
a certain band of frequency while consonants are expressed by shorter and longer glissandi, i.e.
they are formed as (continuous or interrupted) variations in the frequency range.
Whistles are not as easy to understand as spoken words as the complex speech signal is
replaced by a simplifi ed image with better transmission properties. A successful communication
requires thus considerable training on both sides and messages sometimes have to be repeated
several times. Whistled languages, however, are not simple codes that produce only stereotype
messages. Far from it! They are sophisticated systems that permit one to express every kind of
message. In other words: All that can be said can also be whistled.
1.1 Whistles: How they are produced and what physical characteristics they have
In Africa and Mexico whistled languages are actively used only by men. Women are able to
understand them but they don’t whistle. The gender-specifi city however is not a feature
particular to whistled languages. It can be found with other speech surrogates, or in the use of
specifi c scripts or a specifi c language for one of the sexes. In all the other parts of the world
except Africa and Mexico, the whistled languages are used by both sexes.
Whistles seem to transport more than mere semantic information. Busnel (1976) tried to
show that they carry also some sort of non-verbal information like the whistler’s age, sex, or
even the whistler’s identity or mood.
Whistles are either produced by the lips only or with the help of fi ngers and leaves. The
sound production is thus different from overtone singing, where the signal produced by the
vocal cords is selectively amplifi ed by manipulating the form of the resonant cavities.
Hands are sometimes used like a megaphone, i.e. to direct or amplify the signal. The
whistles produced in this way have physical properties necessary to make a communication
over long distances possible, e.g up to 10 kilometers on the Island of La Gomera. The frequency
of whistles is much higher than that of a spoken language. Their frequencies range from 1200
to 4000 Hertz, while the fundamental frequency of a male and female speaker range from 80
to 200 and 150 to 350 Hertz respectively. In addition, spoken languages add to the fundamental
frequency F0 the harmonics F1 and F2 and thus have a relatively wide band of frequencies which
redundantly encode the message while whistles concentrate on a small band of frequencies,
which, according to Meyer (2004) makes the signal resistant against reverberation. In addition,
the whistles can reach a loudness of 130 dB, which is louder than human shouting (100 dB) or a
helicopter (110 dB) and similar to an air raid siren (130 dB).
2.2 The reaction of the brain
In 2005 two psychologists (Manuel Carreiras from the University of La Laguna in Tenerife and
David Corina form the University of Washington) examined the brains of whistlers and non-
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