28 May
2013
28 May
'13
10:59 p.m.
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 12:52:31AM -0400, Mouse wrote:
Maybe. I thought it was a completely distinct language on its own, but
what I remember is fuzzy enough that the thing described certainly
could have been Silbo Gomero as outlined in that wikipedia page.
I think you are thinking about the Pirah?. An indigenous tribe in the
Amazon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people
The language can be whistled solely because it has very few phonemes
(only eight consonants and three vowels), but tone and syllable length
is important and that translates well to whistling.
There are some controversies around their language such as if there is
recursion.
They are quite amazing :) This documentary is worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYtBR2vfgzU
(the link is to a trailer with some nice examples of whistling)
The documentary seems somewhat biased and Noam Chomsky is portrayed as
bit of a dick.
Cheers,
Pontus.
I believe there is some indigenous people somewhere
which has a
language whose sounds are all [] whistling; [...]
Maybe you had this in mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero_language