Speaking in Whistles: The Whistled Language of Oaxaca, Mexico

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

This is so NewsTaco!

I watched it this morning – a short documentary about people in the mountains of Oaxaca who communicate through a whistling language.

That’s right, they whistle to communicate full thoughts and sentences. It kinda makes our cell phones seem ridiculous…at short distances.

Here’s an exceprt from the post in Open Culture:

Whistled language is a rare form of communication that can be mostly found in locations with isolating features such as scattered settlements or mountainous terrain. This documentary above shows how Dr. Mark Sicoli, Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University, conducts field studies among speakers of a Chinantec language, who live in the mountainous region of northern Oaxaca in Mexico. The Summer Institute of Linguistics in Mexico has recorded and transcribed a whistled conversation in Sochiapam Chinantec between two men in different fields. The result can be seen and heard here.

Anyway, once I saw it I had to post it. And I added links to the documentarian, below, so you can check out his credentials.

• In the Americas With David Yetman
• David Yetman, University of Arizona
• David Yetman — Southern Arizona’s ultimate Desert Rat, Tucson Citizen