How whistled speech survives: Silbo Gomero, Kuşköy, Antia, Aas

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Imagine a long, carrying whistle sweeping over hills and gullies. It sounds like a signal, yet it’s a full sentence. In a handful of places around the world, whistling still serves as a means of communication—not a code of gestures, but real speech that can convey meaning, intonation, and even emotion.

As the outlet Turistas notes, this practice took shape long before telephones. In mountains, forests, and scattered settlements, a shout faded quickly. A whistle, by contrast, traveled with ease—audible across kilometers, over ravines and through dense foliage.

How whistled speech works

Whistled languages are not separate tongues; they are a special way of transmitting ordinary speech. People don’t just pass along signals—they form sentences, rendering the rhythm and intonation of words as whistles.

To the untrained ear, it can feel like a riddle. For those raised in this environment, meaning separates cleanly from the sound. Words turn into melody, and sense is carried not by letters, but by pitch and timbre.

Where whistling is still alive

One of the best-known examples is La Gomera in Spain’s Canary Islands. There, Silbo Gomero is a whistled form of Spanish. Shepherds developed it to talk across deep ravines and a rolling, broken landscape.

Over time, Silbo Gomero became a pillar of local culture. It is taught in schools, and about 22,000 islanders at least partly understand the system. Some of them speak it fluently, holding entire exchanges in whistles.

A similar tradition endures in Turkey, in the village of Kuşköy, whose name translates as Bird Village. Locals call the whistled speech the bird language. Younger residents use it less in daily life, but the older generation still remembers how to shape thoughts into whistled phrases.

On the Greek island of Euboea, in the village of Antia, a small group of people also preserves this rare skill. Researchers from University College London are studying the local whistled speech, recording and analyzing it to document and safeguard the practice.

When a language nearly vanished

Not every tradition survived. In the village of Aas in southern France, in the Pyrenees, there was once a whistled language used by shepherds. After the death of its last bearer, Anna Paiyas, who spoke it fluently, the language came to the brink of extinction.

Even so, efforts to preserve it continue. In 2024, enthusiasts put online the first audio recording of this whistled speech in many years. It became a pointed reminder of the tradition and stirred hopes of a revival.

Why it matters

Whistled speech is more than an exotic curiosity; it shows how adaptable human communication can be. Meaning can ride on sound rather than words when a community is tuned to hear it.

It is also a strand of cultural memory. In an age of technology and messaging apps, these languages recall a time when people relied on voice, hearing, and ingenuity. Without support, they fade fast: young people move away, and phones elbow out any alternatives. Dismissing them as curiosities would be short-sighted. The experience of the Canary Islands suggests that bringing such speech into classrooms can give it a real chance at life.