[HN Gopher] More than eighty cultures still speak in whistles ___________________________________________________________________ More than eighty cultures still speak in whistles Author : bryanrasmussen Score : 182 points Date : 2021-08-24 13:02 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com) | Dumblydorr wrote: | I use whistling daily. I discovered my dog responds best to | whistling, whenever he hears my whistle, he knows it's me and | comes running. Now, I use that to my partner ironically, if I | don't want to shout and hurt the vocal cords, just whistle and | she knows her presence is requested. | vanattab wrote: | >Now, I use that to my partner ironically, if I don't want to | shout and hurt the vocal cords, just whistle and she knows her | presence is requested. | | Or you know... you COULD walk over to where she is. | [deleted] | France_is_bacon wrote: | Or, you know...she COULD walk over to where he is. | VBprogrammer wrote: | Yeah, my partner's family have a "family whistle" which is | often employed to find one another. It's useful but also | feels a little disrespectful. | agitator wrote: | This made me realize that my dad has a specific whistle | that he would use throughout my childhood and even today as | an adult, to get the attention of my brother and myself if | we were out somewhere. Like a "Hey, we're leaving. Let's | go" | ckosidows wrote: | My dad used to whistle at us all the time as children and | he probably still does when I see him. I probably picked it | up from him. | | I whistled to an ex SO and they considered it | disrespectful. I'm not sure I yet understand why it's | disrespectful, not that I consider either opinion more or | less correct. I just don't really understand that opinion. | | Maybe someone can expand on it? | Baeocystin wrote: | My parents had a 'if you hear this whistle, come here', | which, depending on the sequence of tones, meant anything | from '5 minute heads up before it is time to go' to | 'literally drop what you are doing and run to this | position'. | | It wasn't disrespectful at all. It was a great way to | communicate over wider distances than is possible with | regular voice, and in retrospect it was impressive how | little translation it took for all of us kids to understand | which meaning was being conveyed. | calvinmorrison wrote: | I whistle at my SO all the time in the grocery store etc. | Nobody else does it so if we're a few aisles apart usually i | can just do the whistle and then we find eachother. Beats | yelling like a moron | sethammons wrote: | I text my wife to find them in the store; sometimes the | received text sound lets me know where they are :) | dugmartin wrote: | If you want to see some fun dog training with whistles search | for videos of sheep dogs or waterfowl retrievers. | | My cousin trained a couple of black labs to be waterfowl | retrievers. I saw him in training throw out a training "duck" | and hold the labs at this side with just a look. Then he | whistled and they took off. About 5 feet from the "duck" he | whistled again and they stopped. The dogs wanted to get to the | "duck" so bad they looked like they were vibrating. He kept | them there for a good 30 seconds before whistling again to | signal for them to retrieve it. It was pretty cool to watch. | | Not quite as cool but we have a "shock" collar on our cat to | keep him off the neighbor's porch furniture. Our neighbor is | very, very allergic to cats. It is activated by a 10' diameter | transmitter placed under their furniture and beeps like crazy | for 10 seconds before it does anything - a couple of beeps sets | my cat running. | | For some reason (maybe after seeing my cousin do it?) I started | doing a specific whistle pattern when the cat comes in the | house with the collar on. That will now stop the cat dead in | his tracks and he will wait for me to take it off. The reverse | is true also - if he sneaks out of the house without it on I | can do the same whistle and he will stop and wait for me to put | it on him. | 29athrowaway wrote: | There are no IPA keys for whistling. | bradrn wrote: | Sure there are: [s] and so on. But really I see no reason why | musical notation wouldn't be sufficient. | | (I should note that's not [s]; it's [s] with an arrow below it. | It's hard to tell the difference with the font on my screen.) | bitdivision wrote: | That's interesting thanks! There's not much on wikipedia [0] | about that character, but it does appear to be for whistled | speech! | | 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%CD%8E | johnorourke wrote: | Captain Crunch called, said make that 81. | DaiPlusPlus wrote: | > "still speak in whistles" | | "still"? | | Why is having _more_ degrees of expressiveness in a vocal | language considered an anachronism? | 1123581321 wrote: | Read the article and you'll have a better idea how to preserve | this form of communication. | citrus1330 wrote: | If you read the article you would know. | | "Despite their interest to both linguists and casual observers, | whistled languages are disappearing rapidly all over the world, | and some -- such as the whistled form of the Tepehua language | in Mexico -- have already vanished. Modernization is largely to | blame, says Meyer, who points to roads as the biggest factor. | "That's why you still find whistled speech only in places that | are very, very remote, that have had less contact with | modernity, less access to roads," he says." | newsbinator wrote: | > Modernization is largely to blame | | I'd replace "blame" with "thank": the simpler languages can | become, and the fewer of them in daily use we can get to | globally, the better for the entire species. | | I'd love an expressive and terse baseline human language. | | No problem if people still use other languages too, for | cultural or historical reasons. | xj9 wrote: | more language diversity is more fun. common languages are | boring. folks should learn more languages, rather than | less. its good for your brain too. here's to another babel | moment! | newsbinator wrote: | Learning a lot of complicated things is good for your | brain, like programming in various languages or playing | various musical instruments. It's fun too. | | But having a multilingual globe comes at a massive, | immeasurable cost. | | One of the greatest forces to improve economic | opportunity and equality in the history of the world | would be if everybody suddenly agreed on one simple, | terse, expressive human language and switched to it, in | all contexts except home life and shared spiritual or | community services. | | No more IELTS tests, no more spelling bees, no more "why | is 'wherefore art thou' not about Romeo's location?", no | more notarized translation costs everywhere in the | world... everybody gets equal access to all media created | in all places (although of course there'll still be | place-specific references in that media), etc | | If you were designing an ideal human world, the last | thing you'd want to do is build a Tower of Babel on it. | InitialLastName wrote: | > one simple, terse, expressive human language | | I suspect this is one of those "pick two, at best" | situations. | brink wrote: | Soon we will learn how to eradicate these so-called | "whistlers". | mc32 wrote: | In NYC construction workers are having their whistling curbed | because most of it was the of sexist kind or at least a | sufficient number of recipients didn't want them. | dang wrote: | " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of | what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to | criticize._" | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | mypastself wrote: | Your interpretation of the title is not supported by the | article's content. In fact, you're agreeing with it. | addingnumbers wrote: | They call whistling languages "vestiges," a "protolanguage," | and baselessly speculate that they originate from less- | evolved primates. The writer's tone keeps reverting to subtly | dismissive and colonialist. | citrus1330 wrote: | The article actually says the exact opposite. Can you read? | Here's the quote: | | "That doesn't mean that modern whistled speech is a | vestigial remnant of those protolanguages, Meyer cautions. | If whistling preceded voiced speech, those earliest | whistles wouldn't have needed to encode sounds produced by | the vocal cords. But today's whistled languages do, which | means they arose later, as add-ons to conventional | languages, not forerunners of them, Meyer says." | sethammons wrote: | Your post would still work if you removed "Can you read?" | but would be less hostile | addingnumbers wrote: | Yes, clearly they recognized the need to backpedal | somewhat from their long string of intimations that these | languages have savage and primal qualities. | | Did you think that passage was a total non-sequitur? Are | they cautioning you from believing something you would | have no reason to believe? Or do you think they were | aware they had unduly created that impression. | pcrh wrote: | On the contrary, they stress that using whistling to | discover fundamentals of communication using sound does | not imply that whistling was the original form of | communication by sound. | addingnumbers wrote: | They could have achieved the same effect by never | suggesting that whistling languages are primal or | antiquated in the first place. | | I suppose if I say "we shouldn't assume people who | comment on HN posts are sad, lonely, and grumpy" I'm not | being offensive or disrespectful. After all, I never said | outright that anyone was any of those things. On the | contrary, it actually says the exact opposite | | It's a trick of language called insinuation. | pcrh wrote: | I think the point they are trying to make is that proto- | language spoken by our ancestors would likely have had | fewer components and reduced sophistication, as does | whistling. | | So identifying the _minimum_ requirements for | comprehensible, yet sophisticated, communication by sound | would possibly shed light on what paleo-speech was | like... | mkotowski wrote: | Probably they worded it this way (assuming good intentions, of | course) because whistle-based language forms were created as a | tool to combat communication hurdles in a challenging terrain. | With the development of long-range communication, I would dare | to say it is amazing that there are still practitioners of | whistled speech. | beardyw wrote: | I remember walking in Andalusia an coming across a shepherd | sitting on a grass bank, holding his head in his hands, | talking to his sheep. It seemed I had stepped back in time | and felt it was a very special moment. | | Looking back I saw he was actually on his mobile phone. | | Other forms of communication are available. | momirlan wrote: | The shepherd i met in Romania had 2 cell phones. One for | each side of the mountain | dr_dshiv wrote: | Because languages gradually lose phoenetic features over time. | Phonetic diversity is a primary method for determining the age | of a language. Hawaiian is a recent language with just 8 | consonants and !Kung is ancient with over 50 consonants. The | same phenomenon occurs with DNA diversity. Here is an article | with explanation: | | https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/bad-linguistics/phonemi... | rvense wrote: | > Because languages gradually lose phoenetic features over | time | | I don't think this is accurate. While it certainly does | happen, new phonemic distinctions can certainly arise as | languages change. | | The article you link to does not support the idea either, in | fact it explicitly contradicts it: | | "Moreover, there is no bias towards decreasing the size of | phonemic inventory over time as human populations moved out | of Africa, as phonemes may be added as well as eliminated." | emodendroket wrote: | For the same reason you don't see a lot of carrier pigeons | anymore: it's been supplanted by something easier requiring | less training. | estebarb wrote: | This is extremely cool!!! Also I find surprising that, as a | Spanish speaker with no whistle-spanish training, I was able to | understand most of the whistles. | bradrn wrote: | Interesting! Spanish isn't a tonal language, so how do you | 'translate' the words into whistles? (And do you think you | could do it without subtitles?) | | (I should note I haven't actually managed to watch the video | yet, because my audio seems to be broken. Perhaps it would be | obvious if only I could hear the whistles...) | yosito wrote: | To me it literally just sounded like Spanish, but in a high | pitched whistle. Some of the sounds don't reproduce 1:1 in a | whistle, but the whistling is adapted to still sound similar | and comprehensible. I thought I would be able to do this | myself by whistling out Spanish words, but it appears that it | takes some practice to make all of the correct sounds. I | tried in English, Spanish and Hungarian and I'm only able to | produce musical notes, not distinguishable letters. | chestertn wrote: | Spanish speaker here. Also surprised that I understand the | whistles, in particular the second video. | | Does it happen to you that when you think of a word in | English, even if you don't vocalize, some of your vocal cords | become tense or move? Well, these whistles feel the same. | bradrn wrote: | > when you think of a word in English, even if you don't | vocalize, some of your vocal cords become tense or move | | Oddly enough, I _haven't_ ever perceived this, but I can | consciously trigger it, and I do think I understand what | you mean. | citrus1330 wrote: | I'm not even a native Spanish speaker and I was surprised to | find that I could follow along pretty well using the subtitles. | mr-wendel wrote: | If you can find it, this documentary is a lot of fun: | Pucker Up - The Fine Art of Whistling | | There is a short, but great segment where this is demonstrated | with two men whistling across mountain tops to communicate. | | The film is filled with gems like one guy explaining as a | compulsive whistler he got in trouble once for whistling a tune | at a funeral. | peter303 wrote: | The version I read on Pocket had several audio clips of whistled | English. It is understandable. Once you learn the conventions for | representing fricatives as whistles, you can pretty much whistle | English. | nate00 wrote: | That sounds so interesting! | | Do you still have a link to it? I wasn't able to find any | examples by Googling. | bitdivision wrote: | Does anyone know if there are any examples of people whistling | English? I'd find it fascinating to see if I could understand | anything intuitively. | mrxd wrote: | This is going to be a real headache for localization. | yoloyoloyoloa wrote: | Its quite common in some hoods in South Africa to use whistling | to communicate if the police or enemy gang are coming. Im pretty | sure this isnt unique to South Africa though | allenu wrote: | You're probably right. I've just started watching The Wire and | in season 2, the loading dock workers whistle to each other to | let them know cops are around. | sweettea wrote: | If you find the notion of whistled languages fascinating, as do | I, there is an app on the Play Store for Whistled Turkish: | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ec.self.whistl... . | Last time whistled languages came up, someone else here dropped a | link to this app. | eeshanagarwal95 wrote: | eeshan | eatonphil wrote: | There's an episode of one of my favorite anthropological tv | series (In the Americas with David Yetman) on the Chinantecan | people in Oaxaca, Mexico. | | All of the episodes in this series are freely available online | and on Amazon Prime. | | https://intheamericas.org/works/210-whistles-in-the-mist-whi... | mensetmanusman wrote: | I was just thinking about the 2-3 whistle communications common | in the U.S. and I have no idea how one goes about transcribing | them in text. | | How would one even generate a language to show whistle modes, you | would almost have to use sheets of music :) | etskinner wrote: | Elsewhere in the thread, someone used 'high low high' to mean | the whistle you use to get someone's attention, and 'low high | low' meaning "I'm over here". | strict9 wrote: | Not the same as emulating vowels and consonants, but my dad used | to whistle by with two fingers on his lips and making the loudest | whistle. Either to get the dog's attention or my attention as a | child. | | It was a rural area and he used it to communicate (come back | home, usually) and as a child I could tell by the sound if it was | a normal 'come home' or one where I was in trouble 'come home | right now!' | | I now have a child of my own and kind of wish I could whistle | like that, though the utility would be much less living in a city | with endless forms of electronic communication. | bradrn wrote: | Apparently that sort of whistling is also used for | communication, at least if Wikipedia is to be believed [0] (or | if I could track down the source, which I don't feel like doing | just right now): | | > Sochiapam Chinantec has three different words for whistle- | speech: _sie3_ for whistling with the tongue against the | alveolar ridge, _jui32_ for bilabial whistling, and _juo2_ for | finger-in-the-mouth whistling. These are used for communication | over varying distances. | | [0] | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whistled_language... | France_is_bacon wrote: | Here in the USA, just this past weekend, I spoke in a whistle to | someone. They had their driver's side car door open, and they | were in a parking space in a parking lot. Someone drove up and | wanted to park in the open space next to them. The person with | the open car door didn't see them. I whistled. They looked at me | and I pointed with my chin to the waiting car. The person waved | at me and closed her door. | | Maybe my whistle wasn't a regularly used and defined "word" per | se, but it was a clear and complete conversation. | | Now that I think about it, I have different whistles depending on | the situation. A high-pitched short whistle is usually "watch | out". A short high-low-high whistle is usually reserved for | friends to say "Hey, dude, look over here, I have something to | say to you" usually followed by a non-verbal sign language, like | pointing somewhere - "go over here" or "check that out". A low- | high-low is for friends to more get their attention and let them | know "I'm over here." The super loud whistle with your fingers in | your mouth is "F-ing awesome" when you're in a crowd and the | music group is playing a great song. It also has other uses. But | mostly when there's a big crowd or the person you want to talk to | is a long distance away. A bunch of high pitched whistles in a | row usually means "danger/watch out." | | There are other whistles, too. Just giving a few to illustrate | how whistles are used right here in the good ole USA for | communication purposes. | | These are used infrequently, but I find most people understand | what I'm whistling about and the different meanings of each | whistle. | wheels wrote: | That's very, very different from whistled languages. In Silbo | Gomero, one of the main examples here, there's a whistled | equivalent to each sound in Spanish. The difference is | approximately as far as waving-hands-to-indicate-something vs. | full-on sign language (though sign-languages are genuinely | separate languages, whereas this is just a different register | of an existing language). | | As it were, I've actually spent around a year on the small | island of La Gomera, where Silbo Gomero comes from. All kids | have it in school as an attempt to preserve it. | dylan604 wrote: | As someone that's been a soccer referee, you can tell a lot by | the ref's whistle. Just a short hit is usual for an obvious | start or restart. For a serious foul, it's a long hard hit. | Just from the whistle, you can tell the ref has intentions of | issuing a card. My favorites are when the player refuses to | acknowledge the ref to "come get your card" whistle calls when | the ref is also "I'm not chasing you down". There's entire | conversations conveyed by hitting that little whistle. | spockz wrote: | This happens exactly the same in volleyball. There are the | almost perfunctory whistles for all the regular things like | out of bounds. Then there are the stronger whistles for when | someone makes a net fault and it interrupts the game flow. | The quick double whistle to get the attention of the players. | Then there is the boldness and the number of whistles which | signal the seriousness of the infraction. Or the "come on, | quit stalling" whistle. | | It is such an awesome compact language. | | I'm still sad I never learned to use my fingers to whistle. | nathias wrote: | You didn't speak to someone with a whistle, you communicated to | something with a whistle without using a whistle (or other | human language). | [deleted] | noobly wrote: | What if his whistles really speak to me? | France_is_bacon wrote: | You say potato, I say potato. You say tomato, I say tomato. | | If you never heard it, this is where it came from: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sbncTUZiGk | | or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRrw2hDjnl4 | actually. | [deleted] | exdsq wrote: | Not sure if it counts as a whistle but I always find it amusing | how my wife, who's a Swedish speaking Finn, inhales sharply to | say "yes". | iandioch wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingressive_sound gives some | details about that. I knew that some Irish English speakers | inhale when saying "yes", but it seems fairly widespread across | Europe... | teddyh wrote: | That is a regional peculiarity specific to the northernmost | parts of Sweden, and, I guess, the northernmost Swedish- | speaking minority of Finland. Note: Sweden is very unevenly | populated; the overwhelming majority of the population lives in | the south half of the country, where also its three major | cities are located. The northern parts of Sweden mostly consist | of vast stretches of wilderness, forests, mountains, and people | who talk funny. | exdsq wrote: | I think it's a little more common purely for fun, almost like | slang, among some Swedish-speaking Finns in Helsinki (where | she's from)."Ja" is still more common, but it's fun to inhale | sometimes | ithinkso wrote: | If anyone is interested, [0] is what OP is talking about I | think | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URgdIAz4QNg | Taylor_OD wrote: | Anyone learn to whistle, in any way or form, later in life? I've | always wanted to but never been able to. I've tried a few types | of whistles. The closest I've gotten is some quasi duck calls | using my hands and whistling with the help of an acorn. | mypastself wrote: | I actually did, from a Reddit thread that guided me through the | process step by step. I'm having trouble finding the exact link | at the moment, but it starts with slowly breathing out the | letter "Q". | | It's not a loud, booming sound or anything, but I went from | blowing soundless air for 20-odd years to actually whistling. | akiselev wrote: | _> I'm having trouble finding the exact link at the moment, | but it starts with slowly breathing out the letter "Q"._ | | Thank you! That tip was all I needed to figure it out :) | mypastself wrote: | Ha, glad to be of help! | Dumblydorr wrote: | Here's how I whistle. Suck in your cheeks, like you're | puckering for a kiss. Make sure the lips are a tad moist. Blow | through the lip hole. It helps if you keep a tightness, or | ambiture (sp?) which is how a horns or winds player would | describe lip/cheek tightness. Inside, the tongue is resting | against front teeth and a very light stream of abdominal air is | supplying the whistle. Any luck? | dmoy wrote: | > It helps if you keep a tightness, or ambiture (sp?) which | is how a horns or winds player would describe lip/cheek | tightness. | | Yea I went from being a mediocre whistler to crazy good at it | when I played wind instrument seriously for a decade. But | that was decades ago so now I'm back to mediocrity. | | Also the word you are looking for is "embouchure" | qnsi wrote: | Curious, any reason why you think it might be different later | in life? | | I think it just takes a lot of practice and patience | Topgamer7 wrote: | Don't forget that you have to repeatedly do it so much you | feel like you're going to faint from lack of oxygen! Remember | that when learning to whistle as a youngin :) | onionisafruit wrote: | I gradually lost the ability to whistle in my 30s. I never | whistled very loud, but now it's almost nothing. | mikestew wrote: | I lost that ability in my 30s thanks to Bell's Palsy. I | mostly recovered, but the nerves on the right side didn't | completely recover enough for me to seal my lips well enough | to do it anymore. After I wasted $35 on a chanter, my wife | and neighbors were relieved to find out that I won't ever be | able to play the bagpipes, either. | jbluepolarbear wrote: | I can whistle 3 ways: the typical pucker you lips whistle, use | your fingers whistle, and a third that I've only seen my | brother and I do. For the third curl your upper lip towards | your nose, bring the bottom lip up flat, move your tongue all | the back and down, and try and direct the air into the split | part of your inner upper lip. It's a very loud piercing whistle | that can be heard much farther than the typical finger whistle. | lexapro wrote: | Like everything else, practice. When I learned it, first few | days no sound would come out. Then the occasional "accidental" | half-whistle. Now I can whistle songs. | indrax wrote: | I was never able to whistle well until I learned to do it while | _inhaling_ which came out much louder and helped me learn a | better mouth shape for whistling while exhaling. | hycaria wrote: | I cannot. I did practice on my commute for two years and still | cannot whistle. People tried to teach me and that failed. From | time to time a get a note but not very loud and I cannot make | it last. | bynkman wrote: | If you can't whistle, there's a way to use an acorn or a bottle | cap to do so. I can whistle, but not that loud, and often use a | bottle cap to whistle loudly at venues. | https://youtu.be/tydJLavu8Fc | JoeAltmaier wrote: | Maybe an app that changes any spoken recording into a whistled | one? | dcolkitt wrote: | The biggest downside I see is that it makes language much harder | for young children. It's rare to see someone under 6 be able to | whistle. | Igelau wrote: | I love the lilt of that whistled _buenoooo_. | 0xdeadb00f wrote: | Slightly related: I've always loved the clicking sounds used in a | number of (South) African languages. Xhosa for example has 6 | different clicking sounds [0]. | | It's so surprising to me that English and most other languages | don't make use of any clicking sounds whatsoever. | | 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language | gfaure wrote: | English does use clicks, as paralinguistic sounds. The first | paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_consonant has | a couple of examples. | Teracotage wrote: | In Syria, whistling has been essential to those hobbyists who | raise birds, to communicate and command them ""Hemeimati (Pigeon | fancier)" If you have ever visited Damascus and its countryside, | Homs, Aleppo or any other Syrian city, you should have noticed | swarms of pigeons hovering over the city, swaying right and left, | up and down responding to the signs of a person standing on a | roof. | | This person would be carrying a long stick in his hand with a | black or white piece of cloth on its tip, waving it, as if | telling the flying swarm to fly higher or fly down towards him, | often with a "whistle" | https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2016/08/mysterious-w... | yellow_lead wrote: | Cool video in that article: https://youtu.be/MaIKWtSCx0M?t=110 | | It doesn't show them doing what you mentioned, but they all go | into their coop on command | TheGigaChad wrote: | Savages. | question000 wrote: | I honestly would love if we stopped trying to square the circle | with speech recognition and just built a phonetic signal based | system for computer interaction. Words are overrated, I'd rather | whistle at my speakers like I'm R2D2. | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | I would also happily go for that, but I suspect that most | people do not want to learn a new way to communicate just to | talk to their computers. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-24 23:00 UTC)