The Spanish Constitution reflects that Castilian or Spanish is the official state language and that all Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it. At the same time, the richness of the different linguistic terms of Spain as cultural heritage to be preserved and respected.
Spanish languages co-officers They can be official in the autonomous communities in accordance with their respective statutes, such as Basque in the Basque Country, Catalan and Aranese in Catalonia, Galician in Galicia, Valencian in the Valencian Community, Catalan in the Balearic Islands or l Basque also in the region. of Navarre which delimits the law.
However, in our country there are other varieties of languages that are little known throughout the territory and typical of very specific places. These are generally practiced by a small part of the population but, despite this, they are recognized and protected so that they can continue to be preserved as part of the history and culture of a territory.
In this case we are referring to a language originating from the Canary Islands and included in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. This is the gomero whistle and below we will tell you more.
The Gomero whistle, a special communication system
On the website of the Ministry of Culture of Spain, they define silbo gomero as follows: “The whistled language of the island of La Gomera called silbo gomero, is a communication system that articulately reproduces the language spoken on the island. using whistles. It is about a substitutive, reductive, spontaneous, unconventional languagecapable of transmitting and exchanging an unlimited range of messages over long distances (up to 5 km), reproducing the sound characteristics of a spoken language. Currently, this language is Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands.
This unique language is practiced in La Gomera by a community of more than 22,000 people and has a pre-Hispanic origin, transmitted from teachers to disciples over the centuries.It has been taught in schools since 1999 and the language of the Gomero whistle is understood by almost all islanders.
It is the only fully developed and functioning whistled language in the world. replace Spanish vowels and consonants with whistles. UNESCO explains how it works: “Two different whistles replace the five Spanish vowels; and four others with consonants. Whistles are distinguished by their tone and their interruption or continuity.
As La Gomera native Alba explains on her TikTok account, the Gomero whistle is based on Spanish but can be whistled in multiple languages. “It is unclear exactly what the origin of the Gomero whistle is, but early evidence suggests that it was inherited from pre-Hispanic inhabitants, meaning it could have a North African origin, come on, that All this belonged to the Canarian aborigines» explains the young woman, among other information.
Finally, it also puts into context how they understand each other between two people who communicate through the Gomero whistle, after establishing patterns for example, the recipient of the message must confirm that they have received what the sender says or, in this case, whistles at them.
