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Whistled Speech—An Ingenious Way to “Talk”

BY AWAKE! WRITER IN MEXICO

▪ In the sierra of Oaxaca, Mexico, the local Mazatec people have no telephones, cellular or otherwise. Yet, they manage to communicate over a distance of a mile [2 km] or more—for example, while working on hillside coffee plantations. Their secret? Long ago, the Mazatecs developed a whistled form of their language. Says Pedro, a young Mazatec: “Mazateco is a tonal language. So when we whistle, we copy the tone and rhythm of the spoken tongue. And we whistle purely with the lips, not with the aid of our fingers.”a

Pedro’s friend Fidencio explains the advantage of articulated whistling: “We use this form of communication over long distances and generally for short conversations. For example, a father may have sent his son to the store to buy tortillas but forgot to ask him to get tomatoes. If the boy is too far to hear the spoken word, his father can whistle the instructions.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses too sometimes whistle when communicating with one another. Pedro explains: “When I visit isolated territories and want to invite a spiritual brother to accompany me, I don’t have to go all the way to his house. I just whistle.”

“So that we know who is ‘talking,’” says Pedro, “we each have a personalized whistle. Usually, only Mazatec men use whistled speech. A woman may understand the language and even use it in the family, but she would not use it to communicate with just any man. That would be considered improper.”

Whistled speech is by no means unique to Mazatecs; other whistlers have been found in the Canary Islands, China, and Papua New Guinea. Typically, they are people who live in mountains and dense forests. In fact, more than 70 whistled languages may exist, and at least 12 have been studied.

We cannot help but marvel at human creativity. Indeed, when you combine that talent with a burning desire to communicate, the only limits are those set by our imagination—and that seems to be almost without limit!

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