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How can people hold conversations by whistling?

On La Gomera in the Canary Islands, people use Silbo Gomero to represent spoken Spanish through whistles. Pitch changes and continuity carry information across a different sound channel. Explore which distinctions survive the transformation and how listeners learn to understand them.

3–7 min

Questions you could explore

  • What information survives when speech becomes a whistle?
  • How does a community keep this skill alive?

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How can people hold conversations by whistling? | Speech Topic | speaking.app