By Sinikka Tarvainen Aug 6, 2009, 5:04 GMT
Madrid - In the 15th century, French missionaries who visited the Canary Islands reported having met a strange tribe which 'spoke only with the lips.'
They were referring to what is today known in Spain as Silbo Gomero, the whistled language that survives on La Gomera Island.
This language that became threatened with extinction as the last of its 'speakers' gradually died, is being revived.
The sound system of Silbo ('whistling' in Spanish) can be adapted to any European language, says silbador (whistler) Eugenio Darias, who has helped to develop Silbo teaching programmes on the island of some 20,000 residents.
'Even Chinese can be whistled in Silbo,' Darias, 58, said in a telephone interview with the German Press Agency dpa.
Silbo is believed to have originated in North Africa, from where the original inhabitants of the Canaries may have arrived before the beginning of our era.
Those inhabitants, commonly known as Guanches, whistled to communicate across steep ravines and valleys millennia before the mobile phone was invented.
When Spaniards later colonized the Canary Islands, they adapted Silbo to their language, whistling Spanish words to each other.
'I learned Silbo from other kids on the street, in the fields and while taking care of goats in my home village,' Darias says.
'My parents whistled short messages to me, for instance telling me to go to close the water deposit, or to tell my uncle to bring tomato seeds.'
'The village was at a certain distance from its agricultural fields, so people used to whistle messages back and forth,' he recalls.
Silbo, which can be heard over distances of up to three kilometres, has four consonants and two vowels. The sounds are produced by placing two fingers in the mouth and by using the other hand as a makeshift megaphone.
The highness or lowness of the sounds plays a key role, as does their broken or continuous melody line.
'It is easier to produce Silbo sounds than to understand sentences, because their meaning depends largely on the context in which they are produced,' Darias explains. The same sounds can have dozens of meanings depending on the context.
Whistling languages also exist in other places, such as Turkey and Mexico.
Canaries experts have looked for whistlers in Morocco's Atlas mountains, where Silbo is believed to have been invented, but Darias says they did not meet any so far who used whistling as an articulated language.
'The Moroccans did not understand Silbo sounds, but said we spoke like birds,' he recalls.
Even though Silbo has traditionally been used only for short messages, anything can be said in the language, according to Darias.
Miguel de Cervantes' 700-page novel Don Quixote could be read out loud in Silbo, he says. 'But the problem of context would make it difficult for listeners to understand it.'
The arrival of modern means of communication reduced the use of Silbo, which was in use on several of the Canary Islands, but only survives on La Gomera.
The local authorities have tried to ensure the survival of what is regarded as an important part of the regional culture, making Silbo a compulsory subject for schoolchildren aged between 6 and 14 years.
About 5,200 children now study Silbo for half an hour a week, and a teaching programme is also being developed for older children and others interested in the language.
'Kids have a lot of fun learning Silbo,' Darias says. 'It does not require sitting in class, but can also be learned while playing on the street.'
Silbo is also a candidate to become part of the intangible World Heritage of the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Even in the modern world, Silbo can survive in a limited form, Darias believes.
'We will continue whistling, for instance to tell someone to come, or to wait a moment,' he says.
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