1 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:07,960 Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 2 00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:09,320 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. 3 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:12,000 Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to go 4 00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:14,160 Speaker 2: into the vault for an older episode of the show. 5 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:18,160 Speaker 2: This one originally aired August fourth, twenty twenty two, and 6 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:20,840 Speaker 2: it is part two of our series on whistling. 7 00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:27,240 Speaker 3: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production 8 00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:33,040 Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. 9 00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:36,960 Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 10 00:00:37,040 --> 00:00:38,360 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. 11 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:40,920 Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two 12 00:00:41,479 --> 00:00:46,240 Speaker 2: of our series on whistling. In the last episode, we 13 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:50,000 Speaker 2: talked a bit about how whistling works physically, what happens 14 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,360 Speaker 2: when you're creating a sort of resonator cavity within the mouth. 15 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:59,240 Speaker 2: We also talked about the whistle speech of the Mastaco 16 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:03,240 Speaker 2: languages and in Mexico, and I wanted to start off 17 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:07,800 Speaker 2: today's episode by talking about some other examples of whistled 18 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:11,160 Speaker 2: languages and some of the common characteristics between them, because, 19 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:14,559 Speaker 2: of course, the Mezteko whistle speech is not the only 20 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:20,039 Speaker 2: example of a whistled language that carries information. In fact, 21 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:22,400 Speaker 2: I was looking at a paper by an author named 22 00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:27,560 Speaker 2: Julian Meyer called Environmental and Linguistic Typology of Whistled Languages 23 00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:31,039 Speaker 2: in the Annual Review of Linguistics twenty twenty one. So 24 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:35,160 Speaker 2: it's a very recent paper. And according to Meyer, there 25 00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:39,200 Speaker 2: are reports of more than eighty languages around the world 26 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:43,800 Speaker 2: that contain a whistled lexicon, and about half of those 27 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:47,920 Speaker 2: have been confirmed by formal studies and published recordings. So 28 00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:51,680 Speaker 2: really solid documentation of at least forty or so whistled 29 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:54,960 Speaker 2: languages around the world. And so I think it's worth 30 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:58,040 Speaker 2: mentioning a few more examples of these in describing how 31 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:00,800 Speaker 2: they work and seeing what we can compare in contrast 32 00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:04,840 Speaker 2: with them. So one example I was reading about was 33 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:09,079 Speaker 2: in a really interesting twenty seventeen article in BBC Travel 34 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:13,640 Speaker 2: by Elliott Stein, and the story here goes like this. 35 00:02:14,320 --> 00:02:19,040 Speaker 2: In Greece, there is a remote mountain village called Antia, 36 00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:23,799 Speaker 2: which is found on the southern eastern coast of the 37 00:02:23,919 --> 00:02:28,280 Speaker 2: Greek island of Evia in the Aegean Sea. And within 38 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,640 Speaker 2: this village there has long been a whistle based language 39 00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:38,279 Speaker 2: called Spheria, which allows speakers to communicate across great distances, 40 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:41,400 Speaker 2: and it seems to have been passed down from parents 41 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:43,920 Speaker 2: to children among the shepherds and the farmers of the 42 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,400 Speaker 2: village for literally thousands of years, for more than two 43 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:50,960 Speaker 2: thousand years to read from Stein here quote. But in 44 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,679 Speaker 2: the last few decades, Antia's population has dwindled from two 45 00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:58,600 Speaker 2: hundred and fifty to thirty seven, and as older whistlers 46 00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:03,280 Speaker 2: lose their teeth, many can no longer sound Spheria's sharp notes. 47 00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:07,000 Speaker 2: Today there are only six people left on the planet 48 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:10,760 Speaker 2: who can still speak this unspoken language. Now this was 49 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:13,640 Speaker 2: five years ago as of this recording, so I don't 50 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:16,120 Speaker 2: know how that number six has changed since then. There 51 00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,560 Speaker 2: are descriptions of some efforts to try to teach it 52 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:23,160 Speaker 2: to more people, but of course, whenever you're talking about 53 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:28,160 Speaker 2: a language with that few speakers, it's certainly extremely endangered. 54 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,000 Speaker 2: In fact, this is considered one of the most endangered 55 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:35,120 Speaker 2: languages in the world. Now. Apparently the existence of this 56 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,920 Speaker 2: language Spheria here was not documented anywhere in the outside 57 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:43,840 Speaker 2: world until the year nineteen sixty nine, when a plane 58 00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:47,240 Speaker 2: crashed in the mountains nearby, and there was a rescue 59 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,280 Speaker 2: team that was attempting to locate the pilot and they 60 00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:55,560 Speaker 2: reported hearing strange, melodious whistling echoing through the hillsides, and 61 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:58,960 Speaker 2: this led to investigation and brought the language to the 62 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,280 Speaker 2: attention of the media and two academics. So a big 63 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:06,560 Speaker 2: question here is where does a language like this come from. 64 00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:10,360 Speaker 2: Linguists do seem to agree that it dates back to 65 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:12,640 Speaker 2: ancient times. It's been around for a long time, but 66 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:17,279 Speaker 2: exactly how it was created is less certain, and apparently 67 00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:21,919 Speaker 2: local legends abound. So one story I came across this 68 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:26,080 Speaker 2: was described in some detail in a documentary piece on 69 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:30,480 Speaker 2: PBS News Hour that was about Spherea, and it claimed 70 00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:35,279 Speaker 2: that the language was invented about two five hundred years ago, 71 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:39,919 Speaker 2: not by Greeks, but by Persians after they were defeated 72 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:44,000 Speaker 2: at the Battle of Salamis. So Salamis was a battle 73 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:48,640 Speaker 2: in four ADBCE during the Persian invasion of Greece under 74 00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:52,160 Speaker 2: zerk Sees the Great, and so Salamis was It was 75 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:55,239 Speaker 2: a naval battle where the coalition of Greek city states 76 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:58,800 Speaker 2: was able to fight off and defeat the larger Persian 77 00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:02,640 Speaker 2: allied fleet. And I think this is widely considered the battle, 78 00:05:02,760 --> 00:05:05,080 Speaker 2: or one of the battles that turned the tide of 79 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:08,120 Speaker 2: the war in favor of the Greek defenders and pushed 80 00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:11,880 Speaker 2: back the Persian invasion. But anyway, the legend about the 81 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:16,039 Speaker 2: whistle speech goes that the Persian survivors of the battle 82 00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:18,960 Speaker 2: I guess they were, you know, their ship was sank 83 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:21,520 Speaker 2: or defeated in some way, and they managed to swim 84 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:24,279 Speaker 2: to shore on the island of Evia, where they had 85 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:29,440 Speaker 2: to survive hiding in the mountains inhabited by hostile native Greeks. 86 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:33,080 Speaker 2: And one way they avoided detection was by coming up 87 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:36,560 Speaker 2: with a way of speaking in whistles that would sound 88 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:40,000 Speaker 2: just like the birds, so they could communicate with each other, 89 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,880 Speaker 2: but their speech would not be intelligible and in many 90 00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:46,919 Speaker 2: ways would probably not even be detected. Oh wow, but 91 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:49,560 Speaker 2: that story has a kind of legendary quality. I'm not 92 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:52,280 Speaker 2: sure how much there is behind that, but it's a 93 00:05:52,279 --> 00:05:56,600 Speaker 2: great story nonetheless, and steinsit some other local legends as well. 94 00:05:56,640 --> 00:06:00,719 Speaker 2: Some residents believe it was invented during the Busante Empire 95 00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:03,400 Speaker 2: by locals who wanted a secret way to communicate that 96 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,800 Speaker 2: would elude the understanding of pirates and people from hostile 97 00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:10,200 Speaker 2: nearby villages. And so a common theme here seems to 98 00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:12,880 Speaker 2: be the idea that somehow this language was created to 99 00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:16,080 Speaker 2: be a secret way of communicating, to allow the locals 100 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:20,360 Speaker 2: to communicate across distance and understand each other without other 101 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:24,120 Speaker 2: people detecting or understanding what they were saying. Now, the 102 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:27,800 Speaker 2: author of this BBC travel piece describes visiting the village 103 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:30,839 Speaker 2: and spending time with the handful of people there who 104 00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:35,000 Speaker 2: still use the whistle language, and they apparently use it 105 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:38,440 Speaker 2: in many of the same scenarios described in that paper 106 00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:41,000 Speaker 2: on the Mastako whistle speech that I've talked about in 107 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:44,880 Speaker 2: the last episode. A big scenario of use seems to 108 00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:50,000 Speaker 2: be communicating across great distance on the mountain side and 109 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:54,640 Speaker 2: sort of greeting or summoning people from far away. And 110 00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:59,719 Speaker 2: Stein cites a Greek linguist named Dimitra Hengen who studies 111 00:06:59,720 --> 00:07:03,320 Speaker 2: Sphere and she says that Spheria is in some sense 112 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:09,120 Speaker 2: a whistled version of spoken Greek, where specific whistled tones 113 00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:14,160 Speaker 2: correspond to specific phonetic syllables or letters, and you can 114 00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:18,080 Speaker 2: build words out of them. Now, again, this is another 115 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:20,760 Speaker 2: way that it's similar to the Mezateeko example, because in 116 00:07:20,800 --> 00:07:25,880 Speaker 2: both cases the whistled language is not like an totally independent, 117 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:29,640 Speaker 2: unique language. Instead, it is in some way adapting and 118 00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:32,920 Speaker 2: existing spoken language to whistles. 119 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:36,200 Speaker 1: And of course that would lean us more towards the 120 00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:38,960 Speaker 1: Greek origin story as opposed to the Persian one. 121 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:41,480 Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought about that, but I don't know if 122 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:44,760 Speaker 2: it actually informs that one way or another, But yeah, 123 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:48,000 Speaker 2: I had the same intuition at least. So one of 124 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:51,400 Speaker 2: the most remarkable things about Spheria, again similar to the 125 00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:56,040 Speaker 2: Mezteko whistle speech example, is that it is intelligible at 126 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:59,960 Speaker 2: a great distance. You can understand messages in Spheria update 127 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:05,320 Speaker 2: to about four kilometers away on this mountainous terrain, which 128 00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:09,520 Speaker 2: Hingen says is about ten times farther than you can 129 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:13,480 Speaker 2: usually understand speech, loud speech or shouting. And I saw 130 00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:16,640 Speaker 2: that number of the ten times distance multiplier mentioned in 131 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:20,280 Speaker 2: other sources, such as a Cambridge University press paper that 132 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:22,960 Speaker 2: I looked at. But there's a great part in this 133 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:27,160 Speaker 2: article where Stein quotes a local shop owner named Maria 134 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:32,160 Speaker 2: Cathalis who tells a story about some of the social 135 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:35,800 Speaker 2: opportunities offered by the whistle speech. And so her story 136 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:38,920 Speaker 2: goes like this quote. One night, a man was in 137 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:42,520 Speaker 2: the mountains with his sheep when it started snowing, he 138 00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:45,040 Speaker 2: knew that somewhere deep in the mountains there was a 139 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,720 Speaker 2: beautiful girl from Antia with her goats. So he found 140 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:51,440 Speaker 2: a cave, built a fire, and whistled to her to 141 00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:55,120 Speaker 2: come keep warm. She did, and that's how my parents 142 00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:55,720 Speaker 2: fell in love. 143 00:08:56,480 --> 00:08:59,880 Speaker 1: Well, that is a better ending than something like this. 144 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:04,400 Speaker 1: And the descendants of Persian soldiers slaughtered him in the woods, 145 00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:07,160 Speaker 1: so I will say that much. 146 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:10,400 Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the Greeks finally came for revenge. 147 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:13,000 Speaker 1: Yeah. I continue to just tell a lot of questions 148 00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:16,960 Speaker 1: about the Persian origin theory. It just seems like it 149 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:20,440 Speaker 1: seems I could be missing something major here, but it 150 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:22,760 Speaker 1: seems like it begs more questions than it answers. 151 00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:26,440 Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, as I said, it sounds more like legend 152 00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:30,119 Speaker 2: to me than like an strongly evidence based explanation. 153 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:33,040 Speaker 1: Yeah, when I agree, away from being a full blown 154 00:09:33,040 --> 00:09:33,720 Speaker 1: ghost story. 155 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:38,800 Speaker 2: But so I've described two examples here of whistled language 156 00:09:38,840 --> 00:09:41,880 Speaker 2: in detail, and as I mentioned before, there are many 157 00:09:41,920 --> 00:09:45,319 Speaker 2: others around the globe. There are something like eighty ish 158 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:48,719 Speaker 2: that have been reported somewhere around forty of them are 159 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:52,680 Speaker 2: very well documented. So an obvious question to ask is 160 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:56,040 Speaker 2: what do these languages have in common? What causes a 161 00:09:56,120 --> 00:09:59,840 Speaker 2: whistled language to arise? So I was looking at a 162 00:09:59,840 --> 00:10:02,560 Speaker 2: few sources here. One of them is that paper in 163 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,440 Speaker 2: the Annual Review of Linguistics by Julian Meyer already mentioned. 164 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:11,959 Speaker 2: Another is an article in Smithsonian Magazine from twenty twenty 165 00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:15,599 Speaker 2: one by Bob Holmes which cites that paper and summarizes 166 00:10:15,679 --> 00:10:19,040 Speaker 2: some other research in this area, for example, focusing on 167 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:23,000 Speaker 2: a whistled variant of Spanish that is used in the 168 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:28,440 Speaker 2: Canary Islands, on the mountainous islands of Lagomera and eliero 169 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:32,240 Speaker 2: In that are both in the Canary Islands. And that 170 00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:36,600 Speaker 2: paper by Julian Meyer tries to gather together all of 171 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:41,120 Speaker 2: these languages and say, okay, are there common topographical or 172 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:45,720 Speaker 2: sort of geographical features that these languages tend to have 173 00:10:45,760 --> 00:10:49,800 Speaker 2: in common? And he finds yes, indeed there are. Almost 174 00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,480 Speaker 2: all of the whistled languages occur in two different types 175 00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:58,760 Speaker 2: of environments, either in mountainous terrains or rugged mountains, or 176 00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:03,880 Speaker 2: in dense vegetation like dense forest or dense savannah. So 177 00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:06,440 Speaker 2: why would it be those two places mountains or in 178 00:11:06,520 --> 00:11:10,319 Speaker 2: dense vegetation. Well, to focus on mountains first, Maya writes, 179 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:14,240 Speaker 2: that in mountainous terrain, settlements and the people living in 180 00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:18,040 Speaker 2: the mountainous terrain tend to be much more scattered across 181 00:11:18,280 --> 00:11:23,520 Speaker 2: larger distances that are more difficult to traverse quickly than 182 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:29,800 Speaker 2: people in other types of topographical settings. So Maya writes 183 00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:33,640 Speaker 2: quote in Eliero and Lakomera in the Canary Islands, in 184 00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:37,720 Speaker 2: the region around Kushkoi in Turkey, in the High Altus, 185 00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:41,160 Speaker 2: or in the Pyrenees near the village of Os two points, 186 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:44,960 Speaker 2: only five hundred meters apart can easily represent an hour 187 00:11:45,160 --> 00:11:49,640 Speaker 2: in walking time. Thus, whistled forms of languages serve as 188 00:11:49,679 --> 00:11:53,640 Speaker 2: soon as the spoken forms become ineffective. Between forty and 189 00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:57,520 Speaker 2: one hundred meters. Depending on terrain, whistles can be heard 190 00:11:57,640 --> 00:12:01,680 Speaker 2: up to seven kilometers away in some vas okay. So 191 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:05,000 Speaker 2: the idea here is that in mountainous terrain you have 192 00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:09,040 Speaker 2: the problem of people are often situated farther apart from 193 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:13,120 Speaker 2: each other, and those distances to cross are difficult to cross. 194 00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:15,520 Speaker 2: They take a long time. So if you need to 195 00:12:15,559 --> 00:12:18,760 Speaker 2: communicate actually coming to be close enough together that you 196 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:23,360 Speaker 2: could understand each other by shouting, that's a long that's 197 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:26,360 Speaker 2: a big time investment. So it's actually worth your time 198 00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:29,840 Speaker 2: to learn a whistle speech that will carry better across 199 00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:33,160 Speaker 2: longer distances and save you all of that climbing and 200 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:37,559 Speaker 2: walking time. Now, what about the forests or the dense vegetation. Well, here, 201 00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:41,920 Speaker 2: Meyer writes quote the vegetation in dense tropical forests and 202 00:12:41,920 --> 00:12:47,200 Speaker 2: savannahs restricts visual contact and limits the propagation of sound. 203 00:12:47,960 --> 00:12:52,280 Speaker 2: In such contexts, Whistled speech frequencies are also well shielded 204 00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:57,239 Speaker 2: against acoustic energy loss due to reverberation, which is particularly 205 00:12:57,280 --> 00:13:02,120 Speaker 2: important in densely vegetated environments because the whistled frequencies belong 206 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:06,360 Speaker 2: to the most favorable frequency window, ranging from one to 207 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:12,000 Speaker 2: three killihertz, within which reverberation in forests varies less with distance. 208 00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:17,280 Speaker 2: In dense vegetation, whistled language facilitates the coordination of individuals 209 00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:22,160 Speaker 2: during group movements, especially during hunting and fishing. Whistling also 210 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:26,280 Speaker 2: allows human dialogue to go undetected by animals, blending in 211 00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:30,199 Speaker 2: with natural sounds, since many animal species also use whistling. 212 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,040 Speaker 2: Other advantages are that whistles are easy to locate and 213 00:13:34,120 --> 00:13:38,760 Speaker 2: difficult for strangers to recognize, especially other tribes, even those 214 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:43,080 Speaker 2: that speak different dialects of the same language. Whistled communications 215 00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:46,440 Speaker 2: are used for distances from about ten meters up to 216 00:13:46,480 --> 00:13:51,400 Speaker 2: five hundred meters, depending on the density of vegetation. Okay, 217 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:54,000 Speaker 2: so there are a lot of advantages in the forest 218 00:13:54,080 --> 00:13:57,640 Speaker 2: or thick savanna. So the idea is that, of course 219 00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:01,280 Speaker 2: whistling speech allows you to communicate kate without being able 220 00:14:01,320 --> 00:14:05,960 Speaker 2: to see each other. Sitelines are limited by the vegetation itself, 221 00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:10,640 Speaker 2: but also whistling just carries better in the forest. It 222 00:14:10,800 --> 00:14:14,040 Speaker 2: propagates better through the forest without being drowned out by 223 00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:17,560 Speaker 2: the sort of the reverberation effects of having all that 224 00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:22,200 Speaker 2: foliage there. And it also seems to pierce through ambient 225 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:26,840 Speaker 2: sound much better. And Holmes also summarizes some of these 226 00:14:26,880 --> 00:14:32,200 Speaker 2: advantages of whistling in the Smithsonian paper, saying that if 227 00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:34,960 Speaker 2: you're good at whistling, and you've been practicing this all 228 00:14:34,960 --> 00:14:37,400 Speaker 2: your life, sometimes you can reach one hundred and twenty 229 00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:41,360 Speaker 2: decibels with a whistle, which is loud. That's like he 230 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:43,920 Speaker 2: compares it to a car horn. It says it's actually 231 00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:48,040 Speaker 2: louder than a car horn, and that whistles pack almost 232 00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:52,640 Speaker 2: all of that energy into the perfect frequency range. The 233 00:14:52,680 --> 00:14:56,400 Speaker 2: most piercing frequency range, which Holmes says is between one 234 00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:59,240 Speaker 2: to four killer hertz. Meyer said between one to three 235 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:03,640 Speaker 2: killer hertz, roughly the same space which Holmes says is 236 00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:07,760 Speaker 2: above the pitch of most ambient noise. And this is 237 00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:11,960 Speaker 2: interesting because I was thinking about, why do we keep 238 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:16,920 Speaker 2: noticing that whistling sounds, the ones made by humans are 239 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:20,640 Speaker 2: similar to bird song. Well, one thing that occurs to 240 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:24,480 Speaker 2: me here is that bird song is probably shaped by 241 00:15:24,560 --> 00:15:28,560 Speaker 2: natural selection to propagate through vegetation and to cut through 242 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:32,280 Speaker 2: ambient noise from the environment so as to be clear, 243 00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:34,240 Speaker 2: you know, to be clear and audible at a distance 244 00:15:34,280 --> 00:15:37,760 Speaker 2: where maybe a potential mate could hear it. So whistle 245 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:42,120 Speaker 2: speech probably sounds like bird song, having similar frequency ranges 246 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:45,840 Speaker 2: because similar forces are shaping them. In the case of birds, 247 00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:48,560 Speaker 2: it would be evolution, and in the case of humans, 248 00:15:48,840 --> 00:15:52,400 Speaker 2: it would be people intentionally selecting whatever noise they are 249 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:56,000 Speaker 2: able to make with their bodies that is the clearest 250 00:15:56,160 --> 00:16:00,400 Speaker 2: at the longest distance, cutting through ambient noise, and losing 251 00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:04,000 Speaker 2: the least energy to reverberation in the forest. And that 252 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:06,520 Speaker 2: just happens to be the whistle that sounds like a bird. 253 00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:10,200 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is interesting to think think about on 254 00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:14,400 Speaker 1: one hand, I'm a quiet whistler. My whistler, my whistle 255 00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:17,120 Speaker 1: is not very loud, and therefore it can be a 256 00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:19,880 Speaker 1: little surprising when I encounter someone who has a very 257 00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:23,080 Speaker 1: loud whistle, and you're reminded just how loud a whistle 258 00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:26,360 Speaker 1: can be. So that's important to factor into all of this. 259 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:29,920 Speaker 1: And another connection that came up in some of the 260 00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:34,120 Speaker 1: research I was doing was that you end up encountering 261 00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:39,680 Speaker 1: this whole realm of of non linguistic sounds that humans 262 00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:43,360 Speaker 1: can make that can be used to communicate ideas or 263 00:16:43,400 --> 00:16:47,240 Speaker 1: to gain attention, et cetera. And you also see things 264 00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:53,080 Speaker 1: like yodling thrown in there. Yodling also an art form, 265 00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:55,960 Speaker 1: if you will, or a performance or to a sound 266 00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:59,560 Speaker 1: that developed that also had to do with communicating or 267 00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:03,840 Speaker 1: calling animals, or communicating with other herdsmen across across long 268 00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:05,000 Speaker 1: distances in the wild. 269 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:08,320 Speaker 2: When you're trying to speak normal phonemes like we're using 270 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:11,600 Speaker 2: in words here, I think a lot of that information 271 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:14,280 Speaker 2: probably easily gets lost at a distance, Like you might 272 00:17:14,320 --> 00:17:17,080 Speaker 2: be able to hear that somebody is shouting, but you 273 00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:19,879 Speaker 2: can't hear the difference between consonants or they making a 274 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,600 Speaker 2: T sound or a K sound like I don't know. 275 00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:26,480 Speaker 2: At a distance, that kind of all disappears. But if 276 00:17:26,560 --> 00:17:31,560 Speaker 2: you're judging more on sequences of pitches, yeah, then suddenly 277 00:17:31,760 --> 00:17:34,440 Speaker 2: the confusion created by distance is reduced. 278 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:38,720 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, just just yelling doesn't necessarily cut it, right, 279 00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:41,760 Speaker 1: because if you can't, if your particular words are not 280 00:17:41,800 --> 00:17:43,920 Speaker 1: going to be overheard, then you might end up having 281 00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:46,600 Speaker 1: to do something like just some sort of rhythmic barking. 282 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:48,960 Speaker 1: And if you're doing some sort of rhythmic barking, well 283 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:52,920 Speaker 1: why not further develop that and get somewhere, get to 284 00:17:52,960 --> 00:17:56,120 Speaker 1: somewhere where it is yodling, or you shift over into 285 00:17:56,119 --> 00:17:59,040 Speaker 1: a whistling, and that develops into some sort of a 286 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:02,239 Speaker 1: whistling language. So yeah, it's just the more you look 287 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:03,920 Speaker 1: at it, the more sense it makes for this kind 288 00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:04,920 Speaker 1: of purpose. 289 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:14,040 Speaker 2: Now, another thing going on with whistled languages is that 290 00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:17,360 Speaker 2: most of them, perhaps all of them, but I'm not 291 00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:19,280 Speaker 2: sure about that. So I'm going to say at least 292 00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:23,239 Speaker 2: the vast majority of whistled languages appear to be not 293 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:28,639 Speaker 2: wholly independent languages of their own, but whistled versions of 294 00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:32,800 Speaker 2: spoken languages. So this was true of all the examples 295 00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:36,000 Speaker 2: I've talked about before. You know, the Mazteko whistle speech 296 00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:40,520 Speaker 2: was a whistled variant of the tonal Mesteko language. Spherea 297 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:43,639 Speaker 2: appears to be a whistled system for encoding spoken Greek. 298 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:47,160 Speaker 2: The whistle speech system of the Canary Islands, called Silbo, 299 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:51,159 Speaker 2: is a whistled version of Spanish, and so forth, and 300 00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:54,920 Speaker 2: for this reason, one of the main differences in whistled 301 00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:59,160 Speaker 2: languages appears to be whether they are encoding a tonal 302 00:18:59,320 --> 00:19:03,560 Speaker 2: language or a non tonal language, and based on that distinction, 303 00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:07,760 Speaker 2: the encoding process is different. Tonal languages tend to be 304 00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:10,560 Speaker 2: whistled in a way that preserves the tones of the 305 00:19:10,600 --> 00:19:13,520 Speaker 2: spoken words, and in the last episode we talked about 306 00:19:14,119 --> 00:19:17,679 Speaker 2: tonal languages. Tonal languages where you know the syllables of 307 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:21,479 Speaker 2: the words also carry information based on the tone you 308 00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:25,439 Speaker 2: use when speaking them, So say, like a high pitched 309 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:29,119 Speaker 2: version of the syllable ma means something different than a 310 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:32,560 Speaker 2: lower pitched version of the syllable MA, or an upgliding 311 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,159 Speaker 2: tone on that syllable, and so forth, like the tone 312 00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:38,600 Speaker 2: of the syllable actually makes a difference. Non tonal languages 313 00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:42,120 Speaker 2: are not like so in English, we don't encode much 314 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:45,240 Speaker 2: information into the tones of syllables. It's just like, what 315 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:46,840 Speaker 2: are the vowels and consonants. 316 00:19:47,359 --> 00:19:52,880 Speaker 1: Yeah, the tone can contain some information, but not nearly 317 00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:56,480 Speaker 1: to the extent that you find in true tonal languages. Right. 318 00:19:56,560 --> 00:20:00,679 Speaker 2: No, it's not lexical information, more like maybe sort of 319 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,520 Speaker 2: contextual mood information or inflection. 320 00:20:04,880 --> 00:20:07,919 Speaker 1: Right, Like the difference between saying I would like you 321 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,280 Speaker 1: to walk the dog and I would like you to 322 00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:13,800 Speaker 1: walk the dog. Well, that implies that maybe something the 323 00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:17,080 Speaker 1: last time the dog was walked it was not it 324 00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:19,960 Speaker 1: was not good enough it was or maybe you ran 325 00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:22,119 Speaker 1: the dog, you know, like that sort of thing. But 326 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:27,080 Speaker 1: it doesn't change the actual yeah information contained in the 327 00:20:27,119 --> 00:20:27,960 Speaker 1: word no. 328 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:31,440 Speaker 2: It's more like about the implied information about the attitude 329 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:32,320 Speaker 2: of the speaker or. 330 00:20:32,280 --> 00:20:34,480 Speaker 1: Something, yeah, or I need you to walk the dog. 331 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,440 Speaker 1: It applies maybe you didn't walk the actual dog, maybe 332 00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:40,280 Speaker 1: you took some other creature or item from the house 333 00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:41,680 Speaker 1: with you on the walk instead. 334 00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:44,640 Speaker 2: Okay, so you got a tonal language and you want 335 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:48,159 Speaker 2: to make a whistled version of that. In most cases, 336 00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:51,640 Speaker 2: it seems like you preserve the tones of the spoken words. 337 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:56,399 Speaker 2: Non tonal languages that have whistled speech tend to involve 338 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:00,960 Speaker 2: a sort of approximation of consonants and vowels, and the 339 00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:04,960 Speaker 2: Holmes article I mentioned quotes this scholar, Julian Meyer, explaining 340 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:10,560 Speaker 2: that we already use subtle differences in frequencies to distinguish 341 00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:17,040 Speaker 2: between spoken phonemes, like the differences between certain vowels and consonants. 342 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,720 Speaker 2: So think about the vowels E and O. A long 343 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,240 Speaker 2: E vowel sound has a higher pitch than a long 344 00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:26,600 Speaker 2: oh vowel sound, and if you say them back to back, 345 00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:30,040 Speaker 2: you can listen to the descending melody of those vowel 346 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:34,359 Speaker 2: sounds EO, EO, And in fact, though it's harder to 347 00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:37,360 Speaker 2: hear it first, the same is sort of true of consonants, 348 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:41,399 Speaker 2: Like a T sound contains more high frequencies than a 349 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:45,320 Speaker 2: K sound, and these differences can to some extent be 350 00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:50,560 Speaker 2: reproduced in whistles. And so the discussion of this in 351 00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:54,960 Speaker 2: the article got me thinking about, even without having an 352 00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:58,320 Speaker 2: established version of a language like this, and without any training, 353 00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:02,800 Speaker 2: can you sort of attempt to whistle English phrases and 354 00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:06,880 Speaker 2: have people understand what you're saying. In some cases you can, 355 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,159 Speaker 2: and I actually tried this out with my wife Rachel 356 00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:12,800 Speaker 2: before we recorded here. This was a kind of weird exercise, 357 00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:15,000 Speaker 2: but I was like, hey, can you tell what I'm 358 00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:21,800 Speaker 2: saying here? And so I tried things like which she 359 00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:24,520 Speaker 2: took a minute on but decided I was saying hello, 360 00:22:24,640 --> 00:22:26,840 Speaker 2: nice to meet you, which is what I was trying 361 00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:31,480 Speaker 2: to say, so that one worked a few other phrases 362 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:34,720 Speaker 2: I tried did not work as well, but the ones 363 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:39,120 Speaker 2: that really seemed to work immediately were the ones where 364 00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:43,200 Speaker 2: it was phrases she had heard me say before, especially 365 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:46,760 Speaker 2: when I tried to whistle, common phrases that we use 366 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:53,880 Speaker 2: with our dog, so immediately she heard as all buddy. 367 00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,760 Speaker 2: And I think this ties into something we've talked about 368 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:02,040 Speaker 2: on the show before, the exactg CD musicality that humans 369 00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:05,240 Speaker 2: tend to use when speaking to babies and pets. For 370 00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:09,280 Speaker 2: some reason, there may be evolutionary reasons for this, that 371 00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:13,200 Speaker 2: when we speak to cute things that need our care 372 00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:16,960 Speaker 2: and attention, you know, babies or pets, says kind of 373 00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:19,400 Speaker 2: it might be creepy to think about them this way, 374 00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:24,080 Speaker 2: but to some extent, kind of psychologically surrogate babies that 375 00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:29,159 Speaker 2: we speak with an exaggerated musicality, or tonal variation that 376 00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,400 Speaker 2: we don't use when speaking to adults, and that stereotyped 377 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:37,080 Speaker 2: phrases within this kind of highly musical speech are much 378 00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:40,000 Speaker 2: easier to recognize when you try to whistle them instead 379 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:41,159 Speaker 2: of say them phonetically. 380 00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:45,000 Speaker 1: So are you going to keep whistling? Was it a 381 00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:45,880 Speaker 1: big enough success? 382 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,960 Speaker 2: Oh? No, I think that would be a horrible idea. Also, strangely, 383 00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,920 Speaker 2: the dog did not seem to get it. So when 384 00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,000 Speaker 2: I whistled all buddy Rachel could tell what I was saying, 385 00:23:57,119 --> 00:23:59,560 Speaker 2: but Charlie did not seem affected. 386 00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:05,000 Speaker 1: I tried whistling to my cat whilst researching information for 387 00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:08,600 Speaker 1: these episodes, and yes, you didn't care. And my wife 388 00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:11,639 Speaker 1: was like, like, you can't speak to a cat in whistles. 389 00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:14,240 Speaker 1: You have to use the kissie sound. That's what they understand. 390 00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:16,520 Speaker 1: That's what that's the language they speak. 391 00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:17,400 Speaker 2: It is known. 392 00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,040 Speaker 1: But the kissie sound clicks, I mean, these are all 393 00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,240 Speaker 1: these are not too far removed from whistling. Some of 394 00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:26,320 Speaker 1: these type of sounds will come up again later on. 395 00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,680 Speaker 2: Indeed. Now, one of the most interesting lines of thought 396 00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,920 Speaker 2: emerging from all this is that some experts think that 397 00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:38,639 Speaker 2: studying whistled languages might help us understand the origin of 398 00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:43,240 Speaker 2: human language as a whole, because again, some linguists think 399 00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,760 Speaker 2: that these whistled languages could be similar to the first 400 00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:51,320 Speaker 2: languages that probably emerged in human evolution. Now why on 401 00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,400 Speaker 2: earth would that be? Well, a couple of thoughts here. One, 402 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,320 Speaker 2: I just want to read a passage from the Holmes 403 00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:01,919 Speaker 2: article in Smithsonian quote. One of the big challenges of 404 00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,520 Speaker 2: language is the need to control the vocal cords to 405 00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:09,199 Speaker 2: make the full range of speech sounds. None of our 406 00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:13,359 Speaker 2: closest relatives, the great apes, have developed such control, but 407 00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:18,600 Speaker 2: whistling maybe an easier first step. Indeed, a few orangutans 408 00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,919 Speaker 2: in zoos have been observed to imitate zoo employees whistling 409 00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:27,520 Speaker 2: as they work. When scientists tested one ape under controlled conditions, 410 00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:32,800 Speaker 2: the animal was indeed able to mimic sequences of several whistles. Okay, 411 00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,200 Speaker 2: so that's one line of evidence. Seems that our closest 412 00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:40,520 Speaker 2: biological relatives are better able to imitate and reproduce sequences 413 00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,960 Speaker 2: of whistled tones than they are to imitate and reproduce 414 00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,840 Speaker 2: vocal phonemes like we make with speech. But there's another similarity. 415 00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:54,400 Speaker 2: What is whistled speech especially good for it's communicating across distance, 416 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,560 Speaker 2: and as I mentioned earlier, especially in the densely vegetated 417 00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:02,800 Speaker 2: contexts for hunting and fishing. And in these cases some 418 00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,520 Speaker 2: but not all, of course, but some whistle languages tend 419 00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:10,600 Speaker 2: to rely more on kind of formulaic sentences like you know, 420 00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,359 Speaker 2: go that way, go toward it, et cetera, than on 421 00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,919 Speaker 2: like full lexical representation, which is also commonly thought to 422 00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:25,000 Speaker 2: be how languages first emerged. That there were probably stereotyped signals, 423 00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:27,960 Speaker 2: you know, a sort of more limited range of signals 424 00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,520 Speaker 2: and ideas that you could express with sound that carried 425 00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:35,680 Speaker 2: common meanings. Before there was like a complete and endlessly 426 00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:40,800 Speaker 2: variable lexicon where you could make a sentence meaning anything. However, 427 00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:43,000 Speaker 2: I think it's important to point out that even if 428 00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:47,960 Speaker 2: it's true that these whistled languages might have some things 429 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,040 Speaker 2: in common with the earliest proto languages, that does not 430 00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:55,280 Speaker 2: mean that today's whistled languages are descended from any hypothetical 431 00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:59,440 Speaker 2: whistled proto languages, Because if there were whistled proto languages, 432 00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:02,560 Speaker 2: they long go turned into speech and then you know, 433 00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,600 Speaker 2: many thousands of years past, and then that speech in 434 00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:09,040 Speaker 2: some cases transformed back into a whistled very end. 435 00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,959 Speaker 1: Yeah, So sort of imagining like just the basic sounds 436 00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,720 Speaker 1: one could make and how one might draw from that 437 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:20,120 Speaker 1: palette to communicate things. Some of those sounds become encoded. 438 00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:22,800 Speaker 1: Many of those sounds, if not all, those sounds, then 439 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:28,240 Speaker 1: evolve into more complicated forms. But then we never completely forget, 440 00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:34,240 Speaker 1: we never completely abandon these other modes of auditory communication. 441 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,320 Speaker 1: The palette remains there for us to dip back into. Yeah. 442 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,000 Speaker 2: Yeah. So one last common feature of these whistled languages 443 00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,320 Speaker 2: is that in basically all cases, with maybe a couple 444 00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,240 Speaker 2: of exceptions, their use is declining. Most of them are disappearing, 445 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,640 Speaker 2: and so we might wonder why. Well, several causes are 446 00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,159 Speaker 2: cited in the Holmes article. One is strangely roads. You 447 00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,640 Speaker 2: tend to find whistle speech only in places that are 448 00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:06,000 Speaker 2: very remote, and that apparently the presence of well paved 449 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,760 Speaker 2: roads tends to cause whistle speech to fall into disuse. 450 00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:11,920 Speaker 2: Now you can imagine that could be for a couple 451 00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,359 Speaker 2: of reasons. One could be well paved roads to a 452 00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,800 Speaker 2: place increase the connection of that place to the rest 453 00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,400 Speaker 2: of the world. So just sort of in the same way, 454 00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,119 Speaker 2: that sort of connection to global culture would cause the 455 00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,760 Speaker 2: would tend to cause the disuse of all types of 456 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,520 Speaker 2: local customs, and so the whistle speech would just be 457 00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:33,399 Speaker 2: one of them. But another reason I could think of 458 00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:37,040 Speaker 2: is that, like we were saying earlier, a lot of 459 00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,520 Speaker 2: the use for whistle speech tends to be communicating across 460 00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,920 Speaker 2: distances that are difficult or time consuming to traverse. And 461 00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,480 Speaker 2: if you make it easier to get from place to 462 00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:51,040 Speaker 2: place in a shorter amount of time, there's probably just 463 00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:54,000 Speaker 2: less incentive to whistle across great distances. 464 00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,760 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I also imagine that it's quite useful in 465 00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:02,000 Speaker 1: communicating with the not yet seen. So if you're having 466 00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,840 Speaker 1: to travel traverse a distance and there are no roads involved, 467 00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,160 Speaker 1: there's no reasonably fast travel, there's going to come a 468 00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,120 Speaker 1: point where you're approaching somebody and maybe you can't even 469 00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,240 Speaker 1: see them yet, and it might be nice to just 470 00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:18,240 Speaker 1: sort of check in with them to like, and the 471 00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,680 Speaker 1: mere fact that they can speak the whistle language gives 472 00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,280 Speaker 1: you a certain amount of information on top of anything 473 00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,600 Speaker 1: they provide then via the whistling. 474 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:32,160 Speaker 2: Yeah. Another hypothesized explanation for the decline of whistle speech, 475 00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,880 Speaker 2: especially in places maybe like Brazil and Central Africa densely 476 00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:40,480 Speaker 2: vegetated areas. Is that deforestation seems to be playing a 477 00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:45,280 Speaker 2: role in eliminating it, but mainly by eliminating one of 478 00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,640 Speaker 2: the types of environmental pressure that tends to motivate its 479 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,080 Speaker 2: use in the first place, which is the need to 480 00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:57,000 Speaker 2: coordinate hunting and other survival subsistence activities within thick forest. 481 00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:01,520 Speaker 2: Remember the motivations, the sort of iioacoustic motivations we talked 482 00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:05,160 Speaker 2: about earlier. But despite these pressures, these languages don't have 483 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,280 Speaker 2: to disappear. I was reading about that there are efforts 484 00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:12,240 Speaker 2: in some places to to like set aside special attention 485 00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,040 Speaker 2: and care to preserve them. I believe in the Canary 486 00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:19,000 Speaker 2: Islands the whistle speech is like is to some extent 487 00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:22,560 Speaker 2: being taught in schools to help preserve it. And obviously 488 00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,240 Speaker 2: that could be could be instituted in other areas as well. 489 00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:28,520 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's great. I mean, it's wonderful that there 490 00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:30,600 Speaker 1: are these these efforts to keep it alive, because of course, 491 00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:35,720 Speaker 1: once once a language is no longer properly spoken, it 492 00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,920 Speaker 1: becomes so much harder to bring it back. Not to 493 00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,280 Speaker 1: say that it can't be, but you know, but clearly, 494 00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:46,920 Speaker 1: like holding on to languages. Keeping them alive are important 495 00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,680 Speaker 1: even and even when they are not, you know, the 496 00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:59,680 Speaker 1: traditional spoken languages, but they are these whistling tongues. 497 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,840 Speaker 2: However, despite all this talk we've been using about how 498 00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:08,960 Speaker 2: whistles can be used just like speech, to encode mundane information, 499 00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:13,600 Speaker 2: to just transmit information between people, there's another way of 500 00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,440 Speaker 2: understanding whistling, one that goes I think way back and 501 00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:20,360 Speaker 2: you know it has been around since ancient times, that 502 00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:24,160 Speaker 2: whistling is also it has a kind of power, and 503 00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,480 Speaker 2: that whistling is different than normal speech, and that in 504 00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,400 Speaker 2: many ways it may be kind of divine or may 505 00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,040 Speaker 2: have a may bring in magical danger with it. 506 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,920 Speaker 1: Yeah, this, if you've listened to everything we've discussed so far, 507 00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,560 Speaker 1: you might you might be inclined to think, well, whistling 508 00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,760 Speaker 1: sometimes we do it, sometimes it's useful, but that's it. 509 00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,720 Speaker 1: We never have any additional values added to it. It's 510 00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:52,760 Speaker 1: never infernal or celestial, it's never vulgar or anything of 511 00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,040 Speaker 1: that nature. But of course this is this is far 512 00:31:55,160 --> 00:32:00,000 Speaker 1: from from the truth. There's this deep well across pretty 513 00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,600 Speaker 1: much every culture here we can look to where whistling 514 00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:07,080 Speaker 1: has some sort of added meaning. It takes on various 515 00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,760 Speaker 1: supernatural tones, and some of these will we'll get into 516 00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,480 Speaker 1: more in the next episode. But I wanted to dive 517 00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,680 Speaker 1: in sort of almost really just go right to the 518 00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,920 Speaker 1: deep end and dive into this subject of transcendental whistling, 519 00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,840 Speaker 1: particularly Chinese transcendental whiz whistling. But this is a topic 520 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,680 Speaker 1: that also has connections to some other areas, So this 521 00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:32,880 Speaker 1: should this should be a fun journey we'll take and 522 00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:36,560 Speaker 1: then again come back in later and discuss some more 523 00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:41,160 Speaker 1: examples of whistling and Chinese culture from a broader standpoint, 524 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,880 Speaker 1: as well as a great number of whistling related superstitions 525 00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,400 Speaker 1: that involve everything from you know, ghosts and monsters to 526 00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:50,760 Speaker 1: more sort of societal pressures. 527 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:51,840 Speaker 2: Take me there. 528 00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:53,840 Speaker 1: Yeah, this markes us to the topic of cheng shao, 529 00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:57,800 Speaker 1: which I believe translates to something like lengthy always or 530 00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:02,000 Speaker 1: forever whistling. It's an ancient Dallas practice that involves the 531 00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,040 Speaker 1: use of long, drown drawn out whistling as a means 532 00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:10,040 Speaker 1: of cultivating and balancing one's vital force or chi. And 533 00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,680 Speaker 1: I think that just that that one nugget of information there, 534 00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,840 Speaker 1: like I feel like that kind of balance as well 535 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,080 Speaker 1: with sort of a broader experience of whistling. There is 536 00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:25,200 Speaker 1: something about whistling that certainly takes you out of out 537 00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,160 Speaker 1: of your thoughts and kind of puts you in the now, 538 00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:29,680 Speaker 1: even if you're just if you were to say, sit 539 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,160 Speaker 1: there and focus on whistling a single tone and sort 540 00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:34,680 Speaker 1: of concentrate on it without even you know, bursting into 541 00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:35,480 Speaker 1: song and so. 542 00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,040 Speaker 2: Forth, yes, I would agree with that. And I guess 543 00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:40,800 Speaker 2: one of the first things that comes to my mind 544 00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,920 Speaker 2: is that whistling seems very similar to breath. And of 545 00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:49,360 Speaker 2: course many sort of traditional meditation practices involve manipulation of 546 00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:51,680 Speaker 2: breath in one way or another that seems to have 547 00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,560 Speaker 2: some kind of power of focusing in the mind in 548 00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,240 Speaker 2: a certain way or unfocusing the mind if you want 549 00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,440 Speaker 2: that that can. Control of breath is like that, And 550 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:04,680 Speaker 2: I guess in a way though, speech is also control 551 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:06,840 Speaker 2: of breath. So I'm not sure why it's that different, 552 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,440 Speaker 2: but it seems a different kind of control of breath 553 00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:14,759 Speaker 2: that's more akin to the slow, steady breathing exercises that 554 00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,360 Speaker 2: you would be more likely to find in a meditative practice. 555 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:20,400 Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes this whole sort of suite of ideas is 556 00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,320 Speaker 1: sometimes referred to as like breath magic, and yeah, I 557 00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:26,120 Speaker 1: think you could. You could throw whistling in there, but 558 00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:28,640 Speaker 1: also some of the various sounds that are made in 559 00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:33,960 Speaker 1: meditative breathing practices, such as ohm, such as there are 560 00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,799 Speaker 1: also various meditation practices where the exhale takes on more 561 00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,879 Speaker 1: of the form of an animal noise like a roaring, etc. 562 00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,960 Speaker 1: But yeah, in this case, yeah, we definitely are talking 563 00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:50,840 Speaker 1: about some form of breath magic and the chang shao. 564 00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,640 Speaker 1: It frequently pops up in Chinese literature, with one classic 565 00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:59,640 Speaker 1: example being Rhapsody on Whistling by Ching goong Si, who 566 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,520 Speaker 1: lived two thirty one through two seventy three. It's too 567 00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:05,320 Speaker 1: long of a work to read here in full, but 568 00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:09,960 Speaker 1: key passages about whistling as a practice of the secluded 569 00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,319 Speaker 1: gentleman are as follows. I'm going to skip over many 570 00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,480 Speaker 1: lines here, so this is not a full experience of 571 00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:20,240 Speaker 1: the translated text. Distancing himself from the exquisite in the common, 572 00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:24,600 Speaker 1: he abandons his personal concerns. Then, filled with noble emotion, 573 00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:28,719 Speaker 1: he gives a long drawn whistle. He sends forth marvelous 574 00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:33,360 Speaker 1: tones from his red lips, and stimulates mournful sounds from 575 00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:37,840 Speaker 1: his gleaming teeth. The sound rises and falls, rolling in 576 00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,719 Speaker 1: his throat. The breath rushes out and is repressed, then 577 00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:46,200 Speaker 1: flies up like sparks. The whistle floats like a wandering 578 00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:50,960 Speaker 1: cloud in the Grand Empyrean, And I'm told, hey, this 579 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:55,480 Speaker 1: is the transcendental void and gathers a great wind for 580 00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,799 Speaker 1: a myriad miles. When the song is finished and the 581 00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,160 Speaker 1: echoes die out, it'll leaves behind a pleasure that lingers 582 00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,320 Speaker 1: on in the mind. Indeed, whistling is the most perfect 583 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:09,600 Speaker 1: natural music which cannot be imitated by strings or woodwinds. 584 00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:13,600 Speaker 1: For every category, he has a song to each thing 585 00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:16,280 Speaker 1: he perceives, He tunes a melody. 586 00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,000 Speaker 2: Oh that's great. That gives me chills, dude. 587 00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So this is the copy of the text 588 00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,840 Speaker 1: I was looking at is in nineteen ninety four's The 589 00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:32,480 Speaker 1: Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, and snologist Victor H. 590 00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:36,680 Speaker 1: Meyer provides some additional details on what is being described here. 591 00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:41,040 Speaker 1: So he describes the Chinese transcendental whistling as being quote, 592 00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,319 Speaker 1: a kind of nonverbal language with affinities to the spiritual 593 00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,960 Speaker 1: aspect of meditation. So it's a tool of the individual 594 00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:53,320 Speaker 1: for self cultivation in search of enlightenment, and is mentioned 595 00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:57,919 Speaker 1: in appendices to the Classic of Changes or the e Ching. 596 00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,200 Speaker 2: Okay, so we actually, I think we did an episode 597 00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,759 Speaker 2: on the eaching a long time ago. We did, Yeah, 598 00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:05,839 Speaker 2: it was like three or four years ago. Now maybe 599 00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:09,880 Speaker 2: I think it was pre pandemic. So the mind controls 600 00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,440 Speaker 2: the breath, and with his breath he whistles. And with 601 00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:17,239 Speaker 2: his whistle, well, here's another quote from there. Quote from 602 00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,640 Speaker 2: any given point of view, each object or situation fits 603 00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:24,319 Speaker 2: into a category for which there is a corresponding hexagram. 604 00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,759 Speaker 2: Each hexagram consists of yin and yang lines, which may 605 00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:32,719 Speaker 2: be interpreted as patterns of sound. These are the songs. 606 00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:37,759 Speaker 2: So whenever the whistler perceives something, he immediately transposes it 607 00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,400 Speaker 2: into a melody. With his control of the vital breath, 608 00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:46,640 Speaker 2: he can manipulate these sounds and thereby control any phenomena. 609 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,360 Speaker 2: So I'm trying to remember the eaching, of course contains 610 00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,080 Speaker 2: the hexagrams. But I'm trying to remember the significance of 611 00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:58,799 Speaker 2: the hexagrams beyond the divination purpose of the eaching. Do 612 00:37:58,840 --> 00:37:59,840 Speaker 2: you recall more than I do? 613 00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:02,480 Speaker 1: Well? I think the main thing to keep in mind 614 00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:06,560 Speaker 1: is that these different these hexagrams come together and they 615 00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,759 Speaker 1: mean things, and then they mean things in particular sequences. 616 00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,000 Speaker 1: And so I think for our purposes here we might 617 00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:17,279 Speaker 1: think of these as being sort of an encoding of reality. 618 00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:22,920 Speaker 1: And then the whistle here, the Chinese transcendental whistling, can 619 00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,320 Speaker 1: be used as a way first of sort of meeting 620 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:30,520 Speaker 1: the coded reality, but then also controlling the encoded reality. 621 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,160 Speaker 1: And it is said that the whistle alone can quote 622 00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,759 Speaker 1: turn the pure yang hexagram inside out to form the 623 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,760 Speaker 1: pure yin hexagram. So we're getting into the vital energies 624 00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,400 Speaker 1: of the universe here. And the idea here is that 625 00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,880 Speaker 1: if someone is an expert in this, if they know 626 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,360 Speaker 1: what they're doing, then not only are they sort of 627 00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:54,600 Speaker 1: confronting reality with the whistle, but then they're able to 628 00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,960 Speaker 1: change things and flip things, alter the universal energy involved 629 00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:00,480 Speaker 1: in a given situation. 630 00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:03,440 Speaker 2: Okay, I see. So it's a kind of a meaning 631 00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,279 Speaker 2: magic in the same way that language itself sometimes is used, 632 00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:11,600 Speaker 2: you know, the traditions that ascribe sort of magical power 633 00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:18,080 Speaker 2: to certain words or symbols signifying words. But it's just 634 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,360 Speaker 2: not the same as the language. It's like an alternate 635 00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:22,840 Speaker 2: version of meaning. Magic. 636 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,560 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have to to stress you idea this 637 00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,839 Speaker 1: is we're talking about those kind of lofty dallist practice here, 638 00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:33,680 Speaker 1: so you know, we're only sort of loosely describing it. 639 00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,880 Speaker 1: But I believe this is the gist of it, and 640 00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:39,160 Speaker 1: this is the way of looking at it that is 641 00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:41,440 Speaker 1: useful to move forward, and again we'll come back to 642 00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:44,040 Speaker 1: perhaps in the next episode, we'll get back into some 643 00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:49,160 Speaker 1: other traditional Chinese ideas concerning whistling in general, and some 644 00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:51,759 Speaker 1: of these ideas will sort of flow back into this 645 00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,000 Speaker 1: topic of transcendental whistling. Now. One of the things that 646 00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,680 Speaker 1: I've found really interesting about this, this idea of using sound, 647 00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,480 Speaker 1: using the whistle, and then sort of changing something about reality, 648 00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,120 Speaker 1: is that and ultimately the idea of breath, the breath 649 00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,600 Speaker 1: becoming sound, and sound not only describing but transforming something. 650 00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:15,320 Speaker 1: I this stirred something in my memory. So and I 651 00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,160 Speaker 1: think another part was the e ching connection, because I 652 00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,880 Speaker 1: was reminded of something that Terence McKenna discussed in his 653 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:26,080 Speaker 1: book True Hallucinations, a concept that his brother Dennis I 654 00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:31,920 Speaker 1: think largely contemplated called the psycho audible warp phenomenon. And 655 00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:33,839 Speaker 1: this is going to also get you know, we're going 656 00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:40,640 Speaker 1: from from from from Dallas transcendental practices here into the 657 00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:43,880 Speaker 1: work of Terrence McKenna and his brother Dennis. So you know, 658 00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:47,319 Speaker 1: this is another sort of lofty idea, but it has 659 00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:51,000 Speaker 1: to do as I've read. It has to do with 660 00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:55,840 Speaker 1: the triptamine metabolism and the electro spin resonance of the 661 00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,960 Speaker 1: psilocybin molecule. And I don't pretend to understand it entirely, 662 00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:02,560 Speaker 1: but it does seem to boil down to a sort 663 00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:07,600 Speaker 1: of voice sound based manipulation of reality while one is 664 00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:09,360 Speaker 1: within an altered state of mind. 665 00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:13,040 Speaker 2: Uh okay, So I when you're talking about McKenna, you 666 00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,080 Speaker 2: never know exactly It's it's hard to tell exactly how 667 00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:20,800 Speaker 2: magical he's claiming something. Are they talking about literally actually 668 00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:25,640 Speaker 2: changing external physical reality by the use of sounds and 669 00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:27,680 Speaker 2: hallucinations in the mind. 670 00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,960 Speaker 1: That's hard to say, right. I mean it's when with 671 00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:36,360 Speaker 1: a lot of this kind of stuff, one gets the 672 00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,319 Speaker 1: idea of it's like the chasing of some sort of 673 00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:41,759 Speaker 1: a of an idea that it's all about sort of 674 00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,200 Speaker 1: you know, the ideas coming together things that they've read 675 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:51,040 Speaker 1: and taking on new forms within the psychedelic experience. So Yeah, 676 00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:55,080 Speaker 1: it's it's hard to say, but I was curious on 677 00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,760 Speaker 1: reading somebody else's take on all this, so I found 678 00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,600 Speaker 1: a paper titled The Weird Nowaturalism of the Brothers McKenna 679 00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:05,160 Speaker 1: by Eric Davis for the International Journal for the Study 680 00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,759 Speaker 1: of New Religions, published in twenty sixteen, and this is 681 00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:11,040 Speaker 1: an excerpt. This is one of the things that Davis 682 00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:14,640 Speaker 1: says here. Davis writes, quote, Dennis believed that a psycho 683 00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,719 Speaker 1: fluid could be generated through the vocal effect. He had 684 00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:23,000 Speaker 1: discovered a psychoaudible warp phenomenon that generated quote, a specific 685 00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,480 Speaker 1: kind of energy field that can rupture three dimensional space. 686 00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:30,759 Speaker 1: According to this wild theory, the buzz that Dennis heard 687 00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:34,360 Speaker 1: in his head was caused by the electron spin resonance 688 00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:40,520 Speaker 1: or ESR of the metabolizing psilocybin alkaloids inserting themselves into 689 00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:44,560 Speaker 1: the base pairs of his neuronal DNA. This sound was 690 00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,800 Speaker 1: picked up and amplified through the antenna created through the 691 00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:52,760 Speaker 1: similarly resonating harmine alkaloids let loose from the ayahuasca vine 692 00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:56,560 Speaker 1: that they nibbled. By imitating this sound with his voice, 693 00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:01,520 Speaker 1: its harmonic frequencies would be canceled out calling the harmine 694 00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:06,840 Speaker 1: silicybine DNA complex to drop into a stable, super conducting 695 00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:10,400 Speaker 1: hyperdimensional state with apocalyptic results. 696 00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:13,880 Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I don't want to be unkind, but this 697 00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,160 Speaker 2: reads to me as another one of these cases of 698 00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:21,600 Speaker 2: somebody who's kind of a psychonaut having a profound, very 699 00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:26,680 Speaker 2: personally meaningful, ineffable experience on a psychedelic and then trying 700 00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:31,440 Speaker 2: desperately to sort of literally externalize that experience and say, no, 701 00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:36,000 Speaker 2: it has some kind of literal, causative physical reality to it. 702 00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,160 Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're they're I think that's that's fair. And 703 00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,320 Speaker 1: then they're also of course, again you go into a 704 00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:45,040 Speaker 1: psychedelic experience bringing all of these other pre existing ideas, 705 00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:48,560 Speaker 1: and certainly they seem to be tapping into some alchemical 706 00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,280 Speaker 1: concepts as well. Davis says that it's difficult to really 707 00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,520 Speaker 1: figure out what Dennis is getting at here, but there 708 00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:58,440 Speaker 1: are a lot of comparisons to the alchemical concept of 709 00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:02,320 Speaker 1: the Philosopher's Stone and the creation of this. I believe 710 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:06,400 Speaker 1: that the quote from Dennis's quote, the ultimate technological artifact 711 00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:09,759 Speaker 1: that would hold a great deal of power over reality, 712 00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:15,680 Speaker 1: this getting into the apocalyptic results. So so yeah, there's 713 00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:19,600 Speaker 1: more than a little alchemy tied up into this concept. Now, 714 00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,759 Speaker 1: the idea of the psychedelic experience and all of this 715 00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:27,120 Speaker 1: is interesting, and elsewhere mckinna does connect all of this 716 00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:30,680 Speaker 1: to whistling in a more well, I guess, grounded manner. 717 00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:32,719 Speaker 1: So this is a quote I believe this is from 718 00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:37,400 Speaker 1: one of mckinna's many talks. He says, quote, ayahuasca is 719 00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,800 Speaker 1: different by sound, by song, by whistling, and its ability 720 00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:44,680 Speaker 1: to transform sound, including vocal sound, into the visual spectrum 721 00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,960 Speaker 1: indicates that some kind of information processing membrane or boundary 722 00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:52,560 Speaker 1: is being overcome by the pharmacology of this stuff, and 723 00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:57,600 Speaker 1: things normally experienced as acoustically experienced become visibly beheld and 724 00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,680 Speaker 1: it's quite spectacular. Unquote. This would definitely be I think 725 00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:06,319 Speaker 1: an example of Terrence speaking about something with a little 726 00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:08,920 Speaker 1: more of the science hat on as opposed to the 727 00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:10,359 Speaker 1: psychonat hat right. 728 00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,520 Speaker 2: I mean, I think there he's describing the phenomenology of 729 00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:17,480 Speaker 2: a drug induced synesthesia, the idea that when under the 730 00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:21,920 Speaker 2: influence of some psychedelics, you can the perception of one 731 00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:27,480 Speaker 2: normal piece of sense information can bleed over into another. So, 732 00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:31,360 Speaker 2: for example, people on certain psychedelics often report being able 733 00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:34,640 Speaker 2: to hear colors or see sounds and so forth. 734 00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:37,480 Speaker 1: Yeah, now now getting into what Terrence is talking about 735 00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:42,920 Speaker 1: here concerning ayahuasca. Ayahuasca, for anyone unfamiliar, is a psychoactive 736 00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,880 Speaker 1: brew used for ceremonial purposes among various indigenous peoples of 737 00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:50,240 Speaker 1: the Amazon Basin. Taking it can result in an altered 738 00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:54,160 Speaker 1: state of consciousness, complete with hallucinations. And for a little 739 00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:56,080 Speaker 1: more about whistling and all of this, I turned to 740 00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:58,839 Speaker 1: a paper. This is a nineteen seventy one paper by 741 00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:02,799 Speaker 1: Fred Katz and Mariline Dobken de Rios published in the 742 00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,799 Speaker 1: Journal of American Folklore. Again, this is in nineteen seventy one, 743 00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:10,439 Speaker 1: and it's titled Hallucinogenic Music, An Analysis of the Role 744 00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:15,600 Speaker 1: of Whistling in Peruvian Ayahuasca healing sessions, and in it 745 00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:18,840 Speaker 1: the author's point out that drug induced states and music 746 00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:21,360 Speaker 1: tend to go hand in hand in traditions around the 747 00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:26,640 Speaker 1: world that involves psychoactive substances. They're talking about religious traditions here, 748 00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:30,040 Speaker 1: but I think this also carries on into modern psychedelic 749 00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:33,720 Speaker 1: culture as well. Only ancient societies they didn't have Steve 750 00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,359 Speaker 1: Roach albums to listen to. They couldn't just play something 751 00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,600 Speaker 1: on their iPhone. They had their traditional musical instruments. They 752 00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,440 Speaker 1: had their voices, they had their songs, and they had 753 00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:43,200 Speaker 1: their whistles. 754 00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,120 Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it is totally not an accident that 755 00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:50,360 Speaker 2: psychedelic drugs are widely associated with music in the twentieth century. 756 00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:52,920 Speaker 2: I don't think that's a coincidence because I don't know, 757 00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,280 Speaker 2: because The Grateful Dead was a band instead of visual 758 00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:58,799 Speaker 2: artists or filmmakers or something. I mean, I think that 759 00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:02,960 Speaker 2: there is sort of an inherent connection between psychedelics and music, 760 00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:06,759 Speaker 2: that the altered state of consciousness, for some reason, is 761 00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:11,920 Speaker 2: very well complemented by music. I don't know. The patterns 762 00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:14,880 Speaker 2: created by music tend to be very pleasing to people 763 00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:19,160 Speaker 2: in altered states of consciousness. And it's sort of a 764 00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,080 Speaker 2: feedback loop too, right, that there's this idea that people 765 00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:25,520 Speaker 2: on psychedelics often enjoy listening to music but also want 766 00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:26,440 Speaker 2: to create music. 767 00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,719 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the psychedelic experience can change the way 768 00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:33,560 Speaker 1: the music is heard, the way it's interpreted, and so forth. 769 00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:35,720 Speaker 1: And they get into this a little bit in the paper. 770 00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:40,000 Speaker 1: They describe the use of whistling incantations with these ayahuasca 771 00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:44,120 Speaker 1: ceremonies which are thought to allow one to evoke the 772 00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:47,919 Speaker 1: spirit of the vine for healing purposes. And they point 773 00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:50,720 Speaker 1: out that on one hand, the uses of sacred music 774 00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:52,920 Speaker 1: and a sit in these sorts of situations, this is 775 00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:54,920 Speaker 1: not all that different from the use of sa Gregorian 776 00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:58,520 Speaker 1: chant in medieval Christianity. You know, we also do we can't, 777 00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:00,960 Speaker 1: we can't go into a scenario like this and forget 778 00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:05,160 Speaker 1: that music on its own is already this powerful thing 779 00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:09,879 Speaker 1: that alters thought, you know, and can make minds work 780 00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:13,239 Speaker 1: in unison with each other. But we do have the 781 00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:18,120 Speaker 1: added psychedelic factor here to take into account. And this 782 00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,680 Speaker 1: is where it gets perhaps a little more interesting with 783 00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:24,600 Speaker 1: the ayahuasca scenario. They write quote such phenomena as the 784 00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:28,600 Speaker 1: slowing down or changing of time. Perception must be related 785 00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:31,560 Speaker 1: to how music is perceived by the individual under the 786 00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:37,239 Speaker 1: effects of powerful alkaloids harmine and harmaline present in the 787 00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:42,560 Speaker 1: ayahuasca potion. The number of metronomic markings listed earlier the 788 00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,960 Speaker 1: paper includes some sheet music notations of the whistling may 789 00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,680 Speaker 1: not indeed be perceived as they would in an ordinary state. 790 00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:52,719 Speaker 1: So that's we're thinking about the idea of music that 791 00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:57,239 Speaker 1: is not only not only is it interesting when it 792 00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:01,080 Speaker 1: is heard during this particular altered state of consciousness, but 793 00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:03,759 Speaker 1: it is created to be heard in this altered state 794 00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:04,520 Speaker 1: of consciousness. 795 00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,799 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I would say that that there are other 796 00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:12,200 Speaker 2: parallels to modern popular music there. What would you say 797 00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:16,239 Speaker 2: about genres of music that are most often associated with 798 00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:19,719 Speaker 2: psychedelic experiences. I would say they tend to be more 799 00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:23,800 Speaker 2: sort of meandering and repetitive. And I think that's because 800 00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,440 Speaker 2: you know, like jam bands and stuff, or or stone 801 00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:29,640 Speaker 2: or metal or any of those things, that they tend 802 00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:33,600 Speaker 2: to create these patterns that repeat a lot and are 803 00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:37,120 Speaker 2: are less tight and focus than say a normal two 804 00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:40,960 Speaker 2: and a half minute pop song, And that clearly has 805 00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,440 Speaker 2: something to do again with the phenomenology of the psychedelic experience, 806 00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:46,799 Speaker 2: that there's something about like sort of getting into a 807 00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,560 Speaker 2: state of mind and lingering there and maybe changes in 808 00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:52,760 Speaker 2: the perception of time and patterns and stuff. 809 00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:55,520 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point about the repetition, because you 810 00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,920 Speaker 1: think you can think of various rather different genres of 811 00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:03,399 Speaker 1: popular music today that have strong connections to psychedelic drug 812 00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:07,600 Speaker 1: culture things. Is different to say cy trance and say 813 00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,560 Speaker 1: doom metal. You know, you wouldn't mistake one for the other. 814 00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:14,960 Speaker 1: But when you get into like long uses of repetition, 815 00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:16,560 Speaker 1: there are similarities there. 816 00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:20,359 Speaker 2: But so okay, that's music specifically and why certain kinds 817 00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:23,319 Speaker 2: of music might traditionally be associated with these ceremonies that 818 00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:27,759 Speaker 2: involve psychedelics. But like, what about the specific characteristics of 819 00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:29,280 Speaker 2: whistling would come in. 820 00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:33,120 Speaker 1: Right, So to bring us back to this ayahuasca scenario, 821 00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,640 Speaker 1: you have someone taking the ayahuasca beginning to have this experience, 822 00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:39,680 Speaker 1: and they're being guided by a shaman. The shaman is 823 00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:44,400 Speaker 1: using whistling as part of their guidance. So the authors 824 00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:46,640 Speaker 1: point out in the seventy one paper, the music seems 825 00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:49,600 Speaker 1: to have an effect on the visuals that the individual 826 00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:53,680 Speaker 1: under the influence of ayahuasca reports, and that the shaman 827 00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:57,200 Speaker 1: leading the ceremony and guiding the individual through the experience 828 00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:00,879 Speaker 1: will alter their use of melodies as needed, such as 829 00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:05,960 Speaker 1: one example being in response to the patient the individual 830 00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:10,800 Speaker 1: taking that has taken the drug experiencing nausea or vomiting. 831 00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,280 Speaker 1: Different melodies are said to evoke different sorts of visions, 832 00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:17,360 Speaker 1: and the music, the whistling is said to help push 833 00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:22,360 Speaker 1: the individual past the nausea, past the vomiting, past initial 834 00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:26,640 Speaker 1: anxiety that is a part of the experience, and into 835 00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,359 Speaker 1: the desired alternate state that is often said to sort 836 00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:33,239 Speaker 1: of exist beyond the nausea, beyond the vomiting, beyond the 837 00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:37,200 Speaker 1: initial like physical reaction to the substances. 838 00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:42,839 Speaker 2: I wonder if the specific potency of whistling there and 839 00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:45,680 Speaker 2: not just any type of singing or drumming or anything 840 00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:49,080 Speaker 2: like that. It might have something to do with the 841 00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:52,720 Speaker 2: specific bioacoustic properties of whistling that we talked about earlier, 842 00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:57,480 Speaker 2: like the ability of whistling to cut through other ambient 843 00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:01,080 Speaker 2: sounds and to use a music engineer term, to cut 844 00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:04,560 Speaker 2: through the mix in a way that many other types 845 00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:08,800 Speaker 2: of naturally produced music wouldn't, say, you know, singing or 846 00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:09,920 Speaker 2: drumming or whatever. 847 00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:12,680 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because you can imagine this scenario where the 848 00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:14,839 Speaker 1: shaman is having to cut through probably quite a bit. 849 00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:17,680 Speaker 1: I mean, obviously this is not something that this experience 850 00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:20,600 Speaker 1: is likely not taking place in an urban environment, but 851 00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:25,040 Speaker 1: there may be the sounds of nature outside of the 852 00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:28,480 Speaker 1: enclosure that one is having this experience in. There may 853 00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:34,319 Speaker 1: be other sounds within the enclosure, and of course there 854 00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,319 Speaker 1: is the physical experience that's going on that would be 855 00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:40,400 Speaker 1: quite distracting. And here is the shaman with this whistle, 856 00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:43,759 Speaker 1: this music that is cutting through all that, or. 857 00:52:43,719 --> 00:52:45,360 Speaker 2: To cut through hallucinated sounds. 858 00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,480 Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah, I thought there's one more quote from 859 00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,000 Speaker 1: the paper here I thought was key quote. It is 860 00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:55,920 Speaker 1: possible that the patient's augmented suggestibility encounters in the presence 861 00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:59,240 Speaker 1: of the healer a creative source and origin of music 862 00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:04,960 Speaker 1: which deviates anxiety, tranquilizes, and causes a turning inward by 863 00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:10,280 Speaker 1: the musical evocation of particular visions. And so that turning 864 00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:14,400 Speaker 1: inward reminds me once more of those descriptions of Chinese 865 00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:19,400 Speaker 1: transcendental whistling and the inward journey there, So in a way, 866 00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:21,840 Speaker 1: I kind of feel like it comes full circle there. 867 00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:27,520 Speaker 1: So this is all I think. It accounts for a 868 00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:33,520 Speaker 1: handful of probably extreme examples of whistling that is not 869 00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:38,480 Speaker 1: mundane whistling that takes on this heightened meaning. Be that 870 00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:43,520 Speaker 1: heightened meaning reliant upon some sort of psychoactive property, or 871 00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:47,200 Speaker 1: merely just some sort of an intense thought process and 872 00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:48,360 Speaker 1: meditation ritual. 873 00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:50,920 Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was just looking back at those lines 874 00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:54,000 Speaker 2: you quoted from the Rhapsody on whistling. The translation of it. 875 00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:57,759 Speaker 2: And so I'm thinking about that with reference to the 876 00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:01,160 Speaker 2: psychedelic experience, which you know, in many cases I think 877 00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:04,879 Speaker 2: is thought to be largely associative. That a big characteristic 878 00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:10,680 Speaker 2: of the religious psychedelic experience is maybe forming associations between 879 00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,400 Speaker 2: things in the mind where the cause of that association 880 00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:17,680 Speaker 2: is not obvious or is not literal. And to that point, 881 00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:19,760 Speaker 2: I think of the line in the Rhapsody that says, 882 00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:24,279 Speaker 2: for every category he has a song to everything he perceives. 883 00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:27,360 Speaker 2: He tunes a melody the idea that there are certain 884 00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:33,520 Speaker 2: whistles or sequences of whistles, maybe like tunes connected to ideas, 885 00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:37,120 Speaker 2: even though there's no way that that tune that you 886 00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:41,880 Speaker 2: just whistled actually means a leopard, or actually means a house, 887 00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,720 Speaker 2: or means a tree, But for some reason in your mind, 888 00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,200 Speaker 2: suddenly it does. And in fact, the same thing is 889 00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:50,360 Speaker 2: true of language. That's you know, one of the weird 890 00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:53,240 Speaker 2: fundamental features of language, when you stop to think about it, 891 00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:55,640 Speaker 2: is that the word tree has nothing to do with 892 00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:58,879 Speaker 2: the tree, that the association that you make between them 893 00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:02,880 Speaker 2: is purely a learn association, that it's not to be 894 00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:05,920 Speaker 2: found anywhere in nature. The same would be true of 895 00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:09,319 Speaker 2: the melody, yet for some reason in your mind, you 896 00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:12,520 Speaker 2: kind of create a language that suddenly that melody means 897 00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:13,400 Speaker 2: the concept. 898 00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:16,360 Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think on one hand, these examples are 899 00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:18,799 Speaker 1: are the extreme, but they also do get to some 900 00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:21,440 Speaker 1: of the core realities of whistling that we've been discussing 901 00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:25,960 Speaker 1: all along. So yeah, this has been a fascinating journey 902 00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:27,799 Speaker 1: thus far, and we're not done yet. We have so 903 00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:31,560 Speaker 1: much more to discuss. In the next episode, we're going 904 00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:35,719 Speaker 1: to get into whistling and antiquity. Basic questions like did 905 00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:39,160 Speaker 1: the ancient Romans whistle? Well, it's a more complicated question 906 00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:41,600 Speaker 1: than you might think, as well as. 907 00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:43,000 Speaker 2: What happens when God whistled? 908 00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:46,439 Speaker 1: Oh God, the whistling, the whistling and the divine Yes 909 00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:49,160 Speaker 1: that that also, that was the whole question that took 910 00:55:49,239 --> 00:55:51,479 Speaker 1: me off guard. But that'll be fun to discuss as well. 911 00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:53,840 Speaker 2: Also, I think we want to talk some about the 912 00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:56,360 Speaker 2: psychology of whistling. They might further inform some of the 913 00:55:56,360 --> 00:55:57,600 Speaker 2: discussions we've had today. 914 00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:00,520 Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well, we were We hope that you're 915 00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:03,480 Speaker 1: enjoying this journey as much as we are, and of 916 00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:06,560 Speaker 1: course we'd love to hear from everybody because whistling is 917 00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:10,880 Speaker 1: something that all or most of you are somewhat familiar 918 00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,520 Speaker 1: with it, You're can have particular connections to it in general, 919 00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:16,520 Speaker 1: or specific connections even to some of the traditions that 920 00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:19,120 Speaker 1: we've discussed here. We'd love to hear from you, so 921 00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:23,120 Speaker 1: definitely write in about your whistle and the whistling of others. 922 00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:26,879 Speaker 1: In the meantime. New episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 923 00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:30,120 Speaker 1: The core episodes published on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays 924 00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:32,560 Speaker 1: we do a short form artifact or monster fact. On 925 00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:34,800 Speaker 1: Mondays we do listener mail. On Fridays, we set aside 926 00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,880 Speaker 1: most serious concerns and just talk about a strange film. 927 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:40,879 Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth 928 00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:43,439 Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch 929 00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:45,680 Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 930 00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,319 Speaker 2: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, 931 00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:51,080 Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 932 00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:59,320 Speaker 2: your Mind dot com. 933 00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,799 Speaker 3: Doft to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 934 00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:06,719 Speaker 3: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 935 00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:22,040 Speaker 3: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.