On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
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Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#2I 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.
Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#3I 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 h…
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.
Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#4Just a technicality really, but this is just an encoding of language — like Morse code or writing — it's not a language of its own.
Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#5Relevant "whistled register" of Spanish used in the Canary Islands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero
Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#6Just a technicality really, but this is just an encoding of language — like Morse code or writing — it's not a language of its own.
No, this a language. You may be thinking of say written language which is an encoding of language sounds
Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#7Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#8Anyone have a list of the other systems? Himalayan and Myanmar in particular.
Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#9Similar language is also being used in northern Turkey: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/08/whistled-turkish-tick...
Re: On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language
#10I 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 h…
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…
> 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.
That's interesting -- the one situation I saw had the whistler specifically mention that they were Japanese. In hindsight, the listeners clearly could have figured that out from the camera crew and language...