WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Whistling, Part 1 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:08.560 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:09.920 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.119 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it is Saturday. That means 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:14.800 it is time to go into the vault for an 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.759 older episode of the show. This one originally published August second, 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.680 twenty twenty two, and it is part one of our 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.680 series on whistling, a surprisingly interesting subject. 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:27.400 All right, let's dive right in. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:34.519 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:42.440 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:43.320 name is Robert. 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.960 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:50.800 be kicking off a multi part series about whistling. This 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.320 is one of those topics I hope in classic Stuff 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.680 to Blow Your Mind fashion, we will be able to 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.080 really surprise you how much weird and interesting stuff there 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.440 is to learn about whistling around the world. 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.520 That's right, I mean, we will make it weird. We 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.200 will know ard in episode one, so strap in. 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.199 Yeah. So, one of the first things that I wanted 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.119 to talk about, and I think this is something we'll 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.080 have to revisit in multiple parts of the series, is 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:22.000 the idea of whistled languages much to my surprise after 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.679 reading about the subject, there are multiple examples from around 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:30.240 the globe of whistled languages, or at least whistled alternate 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.600 versions of an existing spoken language. And so to kick 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.080 us off, I wanted to talk about one particular example 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.080 of a whistled language. I was reading about this in 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.760 a classic linguistics paper from nineteen forty eight by George M. 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.520 Cowen called Masteco Whistle Speech. This was published in the 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.680 journal Language in nineteen forty eight. It's by this scholar 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.360 named George M. Cowen who lived nineteen sixteen through twenty seventeen. 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.000 He was an expert linguistics. He was associated with the 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.200 Summer Institute of Linguistics, and apparently this paper is one 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.440 of his most important contributions to the field. So it's 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:15.840 an article documenting this fascinating type of communication practiced by 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:20.760 the Mazatec people living in Wahaca, Mexico. So what we're 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.519 talking about here is an alternate form of the Mazteko 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:29.680 language that is based entirely on whistles. Cowen writes that 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.960 as of the nineteen forty Mexican census, there were approximately 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:38.640 sixty thousand people in the Mazatec tribe, and almost fifty 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:43.000 six thousand of them were monolingual speakers of the Mezateecan languages. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.000 The Maztecan languages are part of what Kawen here calls 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.240 the Popo Loca Mezteko language family, so part of a 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:55.160 broader association of languages found in this area. So Cowen 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.799 spent several winters in the nineteen forties living among speakers 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:03.680 of the Meztecan languge, which is to document these languages 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.760 and eventually the whistle speech. And I want to begin 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.120 by reading an anecdote that he just observed during his 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:15.160 time there. Quote Usabio Martinez was observed one day standing 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.640 in front of his hut whistling to a man a 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.840 considerable distance away. The man was passing on the trail below, 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.480 going to market to sell a load of corn leaves, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.160 which he was carrying. The man answered Ucabio's whistle with 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:32.400 a whistle. The interchange was repeated several times with different whistles. 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.240 Finally the man turned around, retraced his steps a short way, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:40.240 and came up the footpath to Ucbo's hut. Without saying 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.200 a word. He dumped his load on the ground. Usebio 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.080 looked the load over, went into his hut, returned with 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.119 some money, and paid the man his price. The man 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.720 turned and left. Not a word had been spoken. They 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.440 had talked, bargained over the price, and come to an 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.640 agreement satisfactory to both parties, using only whistles as a 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.960 medium of communication, and this is not an isolated incident. 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.600 The author here writes that the Mazateec people frequently hold 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.600 entire conversations and express an extremely broad and versatile set 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.840 of ideas, all using whistles. As he puts it, quote, 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.000 the Masteco is frequently converse by whistling to one another. 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.359 The whistles are not merely signals with limited semantic value, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.039 arrived at by common agreement, but are parallel to spoken 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:33.000 conversations as a means of communication. And so to try 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.120 to elucidate that a little bit, what this means is 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.599 that the whistle speech is not a code like you 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.920 may have heard, you may have seen in movies, I 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.919 don't know, like soldiers crawling around and they sort of 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.120 like whistle codes at each other, and you get the 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.080 idea that maybe they've agreed on a handful of whistled 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.480 signals in advance, like you know that one whistle means 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.000 a stop, another one means go forward. But there's probably 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.280 a very limited array of those whistles, and you had 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.120 to work on agreeing to them beforehand. 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.960 Right, right. Also in contrast to how the sort of 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.880 every day in our world you will encounter, you know, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.400 a handful of uses of whistles that have sort of 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.480 agreed upon meaning sort of a whistle that is an 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.479 attention graber, a whistle that might be a little more scandalous, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.400 and then a whistle that is it seems to say 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:29.200 say whoa, like that's a big truck something of that nature. 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.640 But it's not really, it's nothing at all like a 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.120 robust language of whistles. It's just a few basic whistle 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.559 signals that seem to be commonly used. 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.000 Yeah, that's right, I would say, Like in the standard 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.440 American English speaking context, there are a few sort of 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.479 significant whistles. You basically know what they mean when you 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:49.159 hear them, but there's only a handful of them, and 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.599 you certainly can't make sentences out of them, right. Exactly 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.760 the opposite is true of the mesatago whistle speech. This 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:02.320 is a full equivalent to the stand and spoken Mesteko language. 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.960 The whistles can be recorded and translated by anybody familiar 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.279 with the whistle speech, producing the same specific translations with 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.880 a couple of certain kinds of ambiguities. I'll get into 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.680 that later. So it's not a kind of loose suggestive code. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:20.799 It's not something that has to be agreed on ahead 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.480 of time. It's just an equivalent of a spoken language 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.240 with all the freedom of degrees of expression and lexical 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.120 richness found in the spoken language. And I thought this 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.880 was just amazing, So I guess I want to explore 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.040 a few more things. The Cowan documents that he observed 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.200 about the whistle speech during his time in Wahaka in 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.200 the nineteen forties. So he says also that the Mezteko 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.599 people use the whistle signals when communicating with animals. For example, 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.360 there's a sort of slow upgliding whistle to keep burrows 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.240 moving when on the trail, or whistles to call out 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:01.040 to dogs. But these whistles don't have a translatable language equivalent. 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.719 So there is whistling that is language. But then there's 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:08.640 also a whole set of like whistle sounds that are 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.360 useful day to day, but are not words. 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.120 Yeah. They just if they were to be translated, they'd 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:14.440 be like. 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:19.880 Hey, yeah, or keep walking, keep going another thing. Not 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.960 everybody whistles, and not everybody who whistles whistles the same amount. 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:30.560 Cowan writes that while everyone seems to have listening fluency 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:35.600 with the whistled speech, generally only men whistle, and especially 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.440 men between the ages of boyhood and middle age. So 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.280 he says old men rarely whistle conversationally. It seems to 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:48.720 fade out over the lifespan, and women and girls understand 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.360 what is whistled by the men and boys, but usually 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.000 do not whistle themselves. So he talks about observing a 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:59.040 bunch of interactions where like a boy would whistle something 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.800 to a girl his age, and the girl would reply 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.240 with spoken language, so she understands the whistles, but she 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.040 doesn't use them herself. He even talks about one specific 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.000 example of like a boy teasing a girl and he 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.600 didn't realize what was happening because he just observed the 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.480 boy whistling. He didn't realize it was speech, and suddenly 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.640 the girl lashed out and hit the boy with the 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.720 broom Because of what he'd been saying to her, except 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.000 he hadn't been using the spoken language. 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.760 Interesting, Okay, so with the former we have perhaps a 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:34.120 physical reason for the limit, but possibly cultural, and then 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.080 the second one seems to be definitely cultural. 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.680 Yeah, I don't know if there's like a biological limitation 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.400 on older men whistling either. I mean, it seems like 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.760 this is probably all cultural convention. 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.040 Yeah. I think with older men, based on what I've 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:48.760 been reading, it would be it would be kind of 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.280 a case to case situation. You certainly have older gentlemen 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.800 who are profound whistlers, but there are there are certainly 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.560 cases even in younger people where if there changes to 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.680 one's mouth due to injury, due to just changes in 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.000 dental health, then that could impact one's ability to whistle. 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.520 Well, So a big question here would be why. I mean, 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.400 this is an interesting and beautiful thing about this language 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.920 that it has the you know, the spoken language and 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.080 then it's whistled twin, But like, what would cause a 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.920 whistled version of a language to develop like this? And 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.240 I think one good way to get some insight into 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.880 that is to look at what are the common occasions 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:32.400 for people to use the whistled version of their language 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.959 instead of the spoken version, and one of the big 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.280 answers here is pretty clear. The author here says that 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.720 the most frequent use of the whistle speech was observed 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.720 when the speakers were at a distance from each other. 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.680 He writes quote, Men scattered widely over a mountainside, each 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.439 working in his own plot of ground, will often talk 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.199 to one another with whistles. Travelers on the trails will 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.280 keep in touch with one another by whistling, though separated 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.760 by considerable distance. When wishing to call or get the 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.880 attention of someone, even though he be within easy speaking distance, 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.119 the mastacos will often whistle his name. The village shoemaker 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.880 often calls passers by into his shop with a whistle 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.439 to chat with him while he works. A man may 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.360 come to a friend's hut on a visit. While approaching, 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.440 or when he has actually arrived at the door of 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.480 the hut, he will frequently whistle rather than call his 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.640 friend's name. If the friend is home, he may respond 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.240 from within with a whistle, then come out to greet 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.520 his visitor, or he may remain inside and whistle to 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.760 his visitor to come in. Fascinating Okay, so communicating at 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.120 a distance seems to be a big one, or also 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:43.760 initiating communication at the start of an encounter, which I 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.880 think is interesting that even when we're not at a distance, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.520 we often use language that we employ at a distance, 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.079 like to get some in a spoken language, to get 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.200 somebody's attention from far away, what do you do? You 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.720 yell hey at them? But also what do you do 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.439 when you walk up and see somebody you know, you're 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.040 two feet away from them? You say, oh hey? 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:03.880 And there might be some sort of a wave or 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.360 something in there as well, And I could I can imagine, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:08.800 I don't know if this is sure, I can imagine 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.200 where if whistling could maybe take the place of some 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:16.360 of the otherwise necessary waving or gesticulating that would be 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.040 required to sort of get somebody's attention and say, hey, here, 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.479 I am, there you are, let's. 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.720 Converse, right. So okay, So you got communicating at a distance, 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:28.360 You've got initiating communication at the start of a meeting. 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.440 And then along the same lines, he writes here that 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:33.880 the whistle is sometimes used as a warning, such as 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.440 when someone unknown is seen approaching on the trail, you 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.040 kind of whistle to let all of your friends nearby 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.440 know that something's up, you know, to get their attention. 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.679 Though again he says the most common occation is talking 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.319 at a distance, and he writes that in these cases, 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.600 men working in the field seem to be able to 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.520 communicate easily with people a full quarter of a mile away, 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.360 like on the opposite mountain side, using the whistle speech. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.120 But also, and I found this next part really interesting. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:06.880 Count says that sometimes, especially boys will hold a whistle 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:11.640 conversation if they're trying to talk while older people are 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.000 also nearby carrying on a spoken conversation or even singing together. 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:20.959 And he calls these sort of simultaneous whistled conversations subdued 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:25.400 whistles and says that they're quite audible, and yet they 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:30.360 are able to happen simultaneously without seeming to much interfere 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:34.000 with the spoken conversation of the adults. And I don't 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.120 know that one seems really interesting to me. I mean, 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:40.080 it reminds me of of being a kid and wanting 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.200 to talk to other kids while I don't know, while 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.120 you're in class or something, when you're not supposed to 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.400 be doing that, and there's just an obvious sort of 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.760 clash between two sets of spoken words going on at 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.720 the same time, and this gets the ire of the adults, 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:56.839 not only because you're not paying attention, but because you're 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:02.280 distracting others. Yet somehow I could imagine that, Yeah, maybe 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.800 having like a different form of the language. If you're 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.760 speaking your language based on whistles instead of the normal 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.360 of phonetic syllables, that could allow a kind of simultaneity 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.240 without so much conflict. 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.400 Yeah, a way to speak while the adults are speaking, 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.520 without interfering with what they're doing. Now, the example of 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:24.840 using the whistles to communicate, say, in the case of 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.400 a path, you're in the woods, someone's coming. That reminds 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:33.360 me that And I'm making an assumption here, but if 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.960 one were to say, Hey, Carl, there's somebody coming and 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.000 call out, well, not only are you communicating to Carl, 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.760 but you're communicating something about yourself. I wonder if whistling 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.480 language in specific scenarios like this allow you to communicate 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.440 without tipping your hand at all, regarding like who you are, 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.480 like what your age is, what your gender is, etc. 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.720 Oh huh, I didn't think about that. That's interesting. Well, 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.160 another thing I would say along those same lines. Is again, 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.880 I haven't done experiments to confirm this, but I would 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.280 just say as a baseline, I might assume that whistling 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:15.160 can more easily blend in with nature than spoken language. That, 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.800 like you hear spoken language, you instantly know a person 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.440 is nearby, you hear a little whistle. I don't know 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.840 that could be a bird or something like that if 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.760 you're not tuned into it as a linguistic signal. 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.120 And I think that's where that's certainly where my assumption 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.440 comes into play, is that I'm not sure what it 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.680 would be like for someone who has lived in the 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.360 world of this kind of whistling. If you're used to it, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.760 then maybe you just you've a heightened susceptibility to recognizing 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.800 it and telling the difference between it and the natural world. 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.000 And likewise, perhaps if you're used to it, you can 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.120 definitely tell the difference between a man's whistle and a 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:51.920 boy's whistle. 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.880 Well, So, to round out the things that the Cowan 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.280 talks about in this article, he says that there are 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.600 no lexical limitations on the whistle. Speech sort of already 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.400 got to this, but basically, anything you can express in 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.560 spoken language, you can express in the whistles. However, there 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.640 are some ambiguities caused by the whistle speech, and this 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.400 is because of the basic phonetic features of it. So 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:28.240 the Mestaken languages are tonal languages, and this would mean 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.120 they're similar to like Mandarin, where you can have a 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.720 syllable and you can have maybe four different versions of 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.680 that syllable, and in English they would all be the 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.800 same syllable to us, like maybe the classic example in 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:46.160 Mandarin is four different ways of saying ma, but pronounced 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.480 in each case with a different tone. So you would, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.960 you know, if you're trying to write them out phonetically 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.160 in English, they would all be maa, but one might 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.640 be a kind of gliding up tone and one is 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.760 a falling tone and so forth. Well, the Mestaken languages 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.640 are like this too. They have tones in the speech, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.560 and the tones are what eventually becomes the whistle speech. 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.880 The whistle speech is based on the tonal features of 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.920 the spoken language. But if you have, say two different 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.440 phrases that in the spoken language have the exact same 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.440 sequences of tones, these can of course cause ambiguity in 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:26.680 the whistle speech, and that has to be resolved, you 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.800 might have to say, wait, what do you mean. Cowan 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.479 writes that one of the most common sources of ambiguity 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.880 in whistled speech is just proper names, because there are 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:36.880 a lot of proper names that have the same sequence 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.640 of tones. But despite this limitation that you know, you 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.080 don't have spoken syllables, you're just turning the language entirely 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.000 into sequences of tones. You can communicate a lot, and 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.440 most of the time people understand each other just fine. 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.120 Another thing I thought was interesting is that he says 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:57.000 there don't appear to be any limitations on whistled speech 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.200 mingling with spoken language. Like it's not like you go 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.560 into one mode and then you're supposed to stay there 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.760 and back and forth, and like he says that a 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.639 conversation might start at a distance as as whistles, and 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.199 then switch to normal speech when the parties get closer 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.680 to each other, or you might just go back and forth. 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.280 You might be speaking and then suddenly whistling, and then 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:17.320 and so forth. 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:22.959 Interesting this this is not a perfect comparison, but I 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.760 am I can't help but think of the astro mach 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.439 droids and star wars. You know how they speak with 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:35.200 the kind of whistling language, and and generally when they're 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.520 talking to somebody like Luke Skywalker or whoever, Luke understands 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.200 the astro Mach language and then speaks back in English 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.840 and or whatever we're calling English in the Star Wars universe. 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.520 And at times when I'm watching this, I'm always I'll 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:53.480 stop and I'll think, and I'll of course i'm you know, 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:55.280 caught up in the flow of it, so it ultimately 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.480 doesn't matter. But if I'm over analyzing it, I'm thinking 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:00.720 about the fact that they're they're speaking in two different 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.840 languages to each other, and there doesn't seem to be 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:06.600 any problem. But an example like this from the real 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.840 world makes me think, well, no, this is entirely believable. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.160 You have both parties know the language, but the Astromac 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.520 of course can only speak one of those languages, and 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.720 Luke Skywalker can also only speak one of those languages, 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:20.000 but both can understand. 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.880 Yeah, that's interesting. I have often thought about that too, 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.040 about the how exactly the R two D two communication 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.480 goes on a bolt. But I just wanted to say 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.240 also that, like this isn't something of the past that 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.480 the mesateko whistle speech is still in use today, certainly 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.679 by people in Wahaka and maybe elsewhere as well. If 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:40.240 you want to hear what it sounds like, I would 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.720 highly recommend looking up videos. There are videos you can 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.760 find online of native speakers demonstrating the Mesateko whistle speech, 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.320 and it's totally worth looking up. 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:53.040 Absolutely, yeah, it's quite beautiful. 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.320 But as I alluded to earlier, this is not the 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.400 only case in the world. This is just one example 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:00.640 I picked. There are other examples and I might get 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.280 into them in part two of this series of whistled 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:09.560 languages popping up, especially it seems in mountainous and forested 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.320 regions around the world, And there is a paper I 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:13.960 want to talk about in the next part of the 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.879 series about what are some of the common features that 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:21.239 may cause whistled versions of languages to arise. It's very 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:25.440 interesting to think about what are the pressures and environmental 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:31.440 characteristics that tend to give rise to certain characteristics of language. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:37.520 Absolutely now in discussing whistling here. When we first started 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.119 looking into this topic, I was thinking, well, what is whistling? 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.280 And at first I was thinking, well, this has to 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.840 be one of those questions that shouldn't be too complicated, right, 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:50.840 in part because for many of us, a whistle is 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.240 literally as close as our own breath. We can produce 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.399 a whistle without giving it too much thought, and we 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.920 can generally pick out the sound of whistling rather eas 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.960 maybe not as quickly as we were discussing in our 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.480 previous example compared to other things. But hear it for 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.000 a second and you'll say, yeah, yeah, somebody's whistling, and 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.800 then maybe you can pick out the tune. But yeah, 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:13.840 we know it when we hear it, and we know 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.159 it when we produce it. So I honestly expected to 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.879 kind of springboard pass the basic what is a whistle 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.159 question here, and so can get more into some of 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.480 the media stuff. But then I read this definition of 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:30.080 whistling from the paper the Physiology of Oral Whistling by A. 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.360 Zola at All, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:38.800 in twenty eighteen. Quote. Experimental models support the hypothesis that 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.359 the sound in human whistling is generated by a Helmholtz resonator, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.440 suggesting that the oral cavity acts as a resonant chamber 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.840 bounded by two orifices, posteriorly by raising the tongue to 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:55.879 the hard palate and anteriorly by pursed lips. So I 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.959 don't know about you, but when I heard that that 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.400 instantly it made me realize, Okay, it's a little more 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:07.440 complicated than I had perhaps realized at first. And I 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.640 don't think I had actually heard of a Helmholtz resonator before, 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:12.840 and when I heard that, I instantly thought of like 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.600 the Holtzman effect in Dune. But this has nothing to 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:17.440 do with personal shields and suspensers. 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.439 Well, yeah, I think that's interesting too, that it's like 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:25.560 not a fully settled question how exactly the physics of 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:27.560 whistling work. But I do think it's clear and you 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:31.080 can sort of test this in your own body. That 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.240 part of what's happening with whistling is you are relocating 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:40.439 the primary resonating chamber that's producing the vibrations the sound 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.080 when you whistle, as opposed to when you produce regular speech. 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.160 Because if you just feel it in your body while 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.000 you're talking, you can kind of feel least I can 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.240 that the vibrations sort of seem to be coming from 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.679 the throat. It's also sort of happening in the mouth 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.320 a little bit. But then when you whistle. At least, 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.360 what I feel is I feel the vibration beginning in 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:03.080 my mouth. 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.480 Yeah, I would certainly advise everyone as you're whistling, you 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:09.800 may be whistling right now, to sort of test this out, like, 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:13.440 really focus in on how it feels, Focus on how 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:18.240 you feel the air flowing through your mouth. You'll find 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:22.919 these lateral air passages between cheek and molars, and it's 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:25.359 really quite quite fascinating, because again, it's easy to just 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.480 take this for granted, it's not something for most of us. 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:30.560 Is certainly after a point, you don't really have to 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:32.560 think about it. You don't have to have to look 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.000 up and read instructions for how to do it. You 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.600 just your mouth assumes the form necessary to create the whistle, 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:40.280 and you whistle. 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.200 As a total sidetrack. I'm sorry, but I found the 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:46.840 title of that paper, The Physiology of Oral Whistling, very 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.280