The Spanish You Can Whistle Across a Valley

Transcript

On La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, people developed a remarkable way to carry conversations across deep ravines.

Called Silbo Gomero, it transforms spoken Spanish into whistles.

Changes in pitch, and breaks in the sound, help listeners distinguish speech sounds.

The tradition has been taught in local schools since nineteen ninety-nine.

In two thousand nine, UNESCO recognised it as living cultural heritage.

Attribution

Footage and original sound: Gobierno de Canarias / CEP La Gomera, Menudos Silbadores, tutorial 16; photographs: Akalvin, Gerd Eichmann, dronepicr and Herbert wie via Wikimedia Commons; research: UNESCO, Canary Islands government and Max Planck Institute; original animation and editing: Ask Pandi; cached narration: ElevenLabs. Footage source and reproduction notice: https://www3.gobiernodecanarias.org/medusa/mediateca/s/ensenas/item/3057 ; https://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/principal/avisolegal.html . Adapted photographs retain their stated Creative Commons licences; full source details are supplied with this video. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]}