1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, 2 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:10,560 Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Volga bomb here. When you, a 3 00:00:10,720 --> 00:00:15,120 Speaker 1: human want to audibly communicate with another human, you generally 4 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:19,120 Speaker 1: use your voice. A speech happens when air passes through 5 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:22,120 Speaker 1: your larynx or voice box and is added to noises 6 00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:26,360 Speaker 1: made with your throat, nasal passages, sinuses, and mouth. This 7 00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:29,440 Speaker 1: is a great way to communicate, but there are some drawbacks. 8 00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:32,720 Speaker 1: Of course, there are people who have trouble making those 9 00:00:32,760 --> 00:00:35,960 Speaker 1: noises or hearing them due to any number of conditions. 10 00:00:36,479 --> 00:00:39,800 Speaker 1: But that aside. Let's take the particular instance of your 11 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:43,120 Speaker 1: living on a mountain side and a friend living one 12 00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:47,360 Speaker 1: slope over. Just shouting to each other isn't always that effective. 13 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,120 Speaker 1: For one thing, shouting creates a lot of echoes, among 14 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:54,360 Speaker 1: them nooks and crannies of mountain slopes, and the average 15 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:57,920 Speaker 1: outdoor range of an intelligible human voice is only about 16 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,000 Speaker 1: five nine feet or on naighty meters under normal conditions. 17 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:05,240 Speaker 1: Short of walking over to where your friend lives to 18 00:01:05,319 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 1: carry on a conversation at a reasonable speaking distance, or 19 00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:12,280 Speaker 1: communicating with some sort of visual technique, your next best 20 00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:17,280 Speaker 1: bet is to whistle. Whistling is the product of air 21 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,240 Speaker 1: being forced through a small hole made by your lips. 22 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:23,559 Speaker 1: A whistle is different from your voice because it's clear 23 00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,520 Speaker 1: and the frequency is narrow and high pitched. The sound 24 00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:29,960 Speaker 1: of a whistle can carry for more than five miles 25 00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:33,440 Speaker 1: or eight kilometers, and it holds its form, while a 26 00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:37,600 Speaker 1: shout can splinter into an echoing mess and birds have 27 00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:40,760 Speaker 1: discovered this and use it to communicate between treetops and 28 00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:45,640 Speaker 1: mountain sides the world over. So although humanity has relied 29 00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:49,200 Speaker 1: on spoken language for millennia to accomplish every day face 30 00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:52,600 Speaker 1: to face communication, there are more than seventy groups around 31 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:56,760 Speaker 1: the world that engage in special whistled languages. Millions of 32 00:01:56,800 --> 00:01:59,760 Speaker 1: people speak them, although the advent of text messaging has 33 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:04,360 Speaker 1: so only seen a dive in whistled language worldwide. They're 34 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:07,640 Speaker 1: most commonly found in mountainous regions where shepherds or farmers 35 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,800 Speaker 1: need to pass messages around without huffing and puffing up 36 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:14,000 Speaker 1: and down hills to do so, but whistles are also 37 00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:17,480 Speaker 1: used to communicate through the impenetrable undergrowth of the Amazon 38 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:20,840 Speaker 1: rainforest and are useful to the Inuit at sea as well. 39 00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:24,560 Speaker 1: The hunters can use whistling to speak to each other 40 00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:27,079 Speaker 1: in a way that won't alarm their prey the way 41 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:30,640 Speaker 1: that voice produced language bight. Whistled languages have even been 42 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:33,880 Speaker 1: useful in battle among soldiers fighting on the same side. 43 00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:38,200 Speaker 1: For the article, this episode is based on How Stuff Works. 44 00:02:38,280 --> 00:02:41,480 Speaker 1: Spoke with Julian Mayer, a researcher at the University of 45 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:45,880 Speaker 1: Grenoble in France and author of Whistled Languages, a worldwide 46 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:50,720 Speaker 1: inquiry on human whistled speech. He said, the most fascinating 47 00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:53,840 Speaker 1: thing about whistled languages is their bird like aspect, which 48 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,799 Speaker 1: encodes the complexity of human languages while highlighting a tight 49 00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:02,880 Speaker 1: relation between human language and the ironment. He explained, when 50 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:07,000 Speaker 1: whistled language is still present, it signals that traditional activities 51 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:10,840 Speaker 1: are still commonly practiced and therefore a relationship with the 52 00:03:10,919 --> 00:03:16,320 Speaker 1: land is maintained. According to Mayer, whistled languages are commonly 53 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:20,119 Speaker 1: based on the spoken language native to an area. For instance, 54 00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:23,840 Speaker 1: in southern China, where diversity of whistled languages is high, 55 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:27,919 Speaker 1: spoken language is tonal, that is to say, the constants 56 00:03:27,919 --> 00:03:30,960 Speaker 1: and vowels decide the meaning of a word, as well 57 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:33,920 Speaker 1: as the pitch. The whistle languages in this part of 58 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:37,360 Speaker 1: China seem to match the musicality of the local speech, 59 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:40,040 Speaker 1: and the pitch of the whistle can change the meaning 60 00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:44,120 Speaker 1: of a whistled sentence in places where the language is 61 00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:47,320 Speaker 1: not tonal, like in the mountainous Canary Island off the 62 00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:50,360 Speaker 1: coast of Spain, where a whistled language called seal bow 63 00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:54,520 Speaker 1: Camarrow is spoken. Spanish acts as a template for the 64 00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:58,040 Speaker 1: sounds used. The vowel sounds are mirrored in the shape 65 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:01,240 Speaker 1: of the whistles, while constants are decided by the clip, 66 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 1: cadence and slides of the whistled tones. To hear it, 67 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:08,440 Speaker 1: it seems wild that anyone would be able to understand 68 00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:12,720 Speaker 1: seal bogamarrow at all, but according to Mayer, whistled language 69 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:15,160 Speaker 1: speakers around the world are found to be able to 70 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:21,440 Speaker 1: understand about of what's communicated. Mayor conjectures that people are 71 00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:24,320 Speaker 1: able to understand whistled language for the same reason that 72 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:27,040 Speaker 1: you can read a sentence full of words whose letters 73 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:30,279 Speaker 1: have been jumbled. Our brains are desperate to make sense 74 00:04:30,320 --> 00:04:35,440 Speaker 1: of what's going on. Whistled languages have some neuroscientists rethinking 75 00:04:35,600 --> 00:04:39,000 Speaker 1: how language works in the brain. It's been commonly thought 76 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:42,200 Speaker 1: that language is the exclusive purview of the left hemisphere 77 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:45,720 Speaker 1: of the brain, but studies of whistled language speakers found 78 00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:48,559 Speaker 1: that these languages are handled by both sides of the brain, 79 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:57,080 Speaker 1: much like music. Today's episode is based on the article 80 00:04:57,240 --> 00:05:00,000 Speaker 1: just put your lips together and blow how whizzled Language 81 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:02,400 Speaker 1: his work on how stuff works dot Com. Written by 82 00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:05,240 Speaker 1: Jesslyn Shields. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart 83 00:05:05,279 --> 00:05:07,680 Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com and 84 00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:10,880 Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler klang Ur. More podcasts from my 85 00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:13,920 Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 86 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:15,840 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.