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Smart Messages: The Whistled Languages of La Gomera (Spain), Antia (Greece) and Kuşköy (Turkey)
As the phone was installed in Kuşköy just a few years ago, the whistled language is still
strongly present. However there seems to be a sort of social barrier – insofar that the whistled
language is only used by shepherds and not, as at La Gomera, by the whole population. (Busnel
& Classe 1976: 22)
4. Open questions: What we want to know about whistled languages
When analysing, documenting and comparing whistled languages it seems indispensable to
follow an interdisciplinary approach. Apart from lingustical and bioacoustical questions sociohistorical
ones should also be integrated.
4.1 Linguistical questions
Linguistical and bioacoustical analyses of whistled languages have in part already been done.
But as we showed for the case of the Spanish El Silbo (which is the best analysed whistled
language) there are still many discrepancies that should be cleared. Using the research already
existing there should be developed a system that shows and compares in a simple way the basic
structures and characteristics of the whistled languages.
It should also be analysed whether whistled languages are always following the grammar,
the vocabulary and the syntax of the local spoken language or if there exists a sort of “universal
whistled grammar”.
Very import aspects are the advantages and the disadvantages that whistled languages have
compared to the spoken word. Which non-verbal-information can they transmit and where are
their limits? Are there jokes in whistled languages as there are in the spoken ones? And: How
restricted is the vocabulary – in other words: Are people able to whistle words they have never
heard or can they whistle only known (spoken) words? Moreover it would be interesting to see
whether in Kuşköy, where the whistled language is used in many villages, there are some sort
of whistled dialects.
4.2 Socio-historical questions
Whistled languages are not only a system of communication; they are also a part of the history
and the identity of a certain region. Therefore it’s very important to look not only at their
linguistic characteristics but also at their sociological, ethnological and historical ones, at the
so called Lebenswelten in which the whistled languages are embedded. Such analyses are
totally missing, although they are very important because right in the last 50 years there
were a lot of social changes and technical evolution that infl uenced the development of the
whistled languages. It should be shown who used the whistled language decades ago and who
is using it now (in order of sex and generation). In which circumstances and how often were
whistled languages used in the past (long-distance-communication, communication in the
village, communication with animals, switching between whistles and spoken words) and in
which circumstances and how often they are used now. It would also be interesting to collect
more anecdotes regarding the use of whistled languages. And, it should be analysed, how the
project of teaching El Silbo at school infl uences and changes the everyday use of the whistled
language at La Gomera.
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