'SILBO GOMERO', THE ANCIENT GUANCHE LANGUAGE

Jordi Santanyí & the monument to Silbo Gomero

Jordi Santanyí has just arrived to La Gomera to join The Grandma and her friends in their Canary tour. Jordi is very interested in this island because he and The Grandma are fans of Silbo Gomero, an ancient language spoken in this island since the first inhabitants, Guanches, lived in it.

UNESCO declared Silbo Gomero as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and Jordi and The Grandma want to talk about this wonderful an amazing language which has helped to preserve the identity of the native inhabitants of La Gomera.

Before Jordi's arrival, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 17).

More information: Passive 2

Silbo Gomero, Gomeran whistle, also known as el silbo, the whistle, is a whistled register used by inhabitants of La Gomera in the Canary Islands to communicate across the deep ravines and narrow valleys that radiate through the island. It enables messages to be exchanged over a distance of up to 5 kilometres.

Due to this loud nature, Silbo Gomero is generally used in circumstances of public communication. Messages conveyed could range from event invitations to public information advisories. A speaker of Silbo Gomero is sometimes referred to in Spanish as a silbador, whistler. This oral phoneme-whistled phoneme substitution emulates Spanish phonology through a reduced set of whistled phonemes. It was declared as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2009.

Little is known of the original Guanche language or the languages of the Canaries, but it is assumed that their phonological system must have been simple enough to allow an efficient whistled language. Used by the island's original inhabitants, the Guanches, the whistled language existed before the arrival of Spanish settlers and was also spoken on el Hierro, Tenerife, and Gran Canaria.

A Silbo Gomero whistler, La Gomera

Silbo was adapted to Spanish during the Spanish settlement in the 16th century and was widely spoken throughout the period into the following 17th century. In 1976 Silbo barely remained on el Hierro, where it had flourished at the end of the 19th century.

Use of the language declined in the 1950s, one factor being the economic decline, which forced many speakers to move away to seek better jobs to cope financially. Technological developments such as the telephone played a part in reducing the practicality and utility of the language.

The language's earlier survival had been due to its role in overcoming distance and terrain, in addition to the ease with which it is learned by native speakers. Most significantly, in the period from the 1960s to 1980s, many people had turned away from agriculture and so many middle class families did not want their children to speak the language as it was negatively associated with the rural peasants.

In the late 1990s, language revitalization efforts began and initiatives from within the community started. By 1999, the revitalization of Silbo Gomero was furthered by education policies and other legislative measures. It now has official protection as an example of intangible cultural heritage.

More information: La Gomera-Islas Canarias

Many people in La Gomera speak Silbo Gomero, but their expression of the language deviates in minor ways which show the different origins of the speaker.

As reported in a 2009 UNESCO report, all the people living in La Gomera understand the language, but only those born before 1950 and the younger generations who attended school since 1999 can speak the language. Those born before 1950 were taught the language by their elders in their homes, and those who have attended or are attending school since 1999 were taught the language formally in school. Those born between 1950 and 1980 understand the language but are unable to speak it, as the language was hardly used and negatively viewed during their time of language acquisition.

A Silbo Gomero whistler, La Gomera

When this medium of communication was endangered in the late 20th century, revitalization efforts were generated at both community level and governmental level. 

A combination of initiatives from the La Gomeran community and policies implemented by the authorities saw Silbo Gomero being revitalized and maintained as a cultural asset. These revitalization efforts were well-documented by UNESCO as part of the proceedings for the selection of the 2009 Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

In a bid to preserve Silbo Gomero for the island’s youth, expert whistlers sought to obtain authorization, which enabled them to teach the language on a free and voluntary basis at a dedicated centre. This initiative by the senior islanders garnered encouraging responses, with parent-teacher associations extending it to all schools.

The first of many revitalization measures was thus adopted at the grassroots level, not by public or private entities, which reflected the language attitude of locals towards Silbo Gomero. Education policies which were implemented later were inspired as such -revitalization began at the grassroots and escalated to the highest government bodies.

More information: UNESCO

On 26 June 1997, the Parliament of the Canary Islands approved a motion calling on the government to include Silbo Gomero as part of school curriculum. Silbo Gomero then became a mandatory subject in primary and secondary education, as of July 1999. The provincial government was supportive in its implementation of education policy and also the establishment of a formalized Silbo Gomero curriculum through the publication of El Silbo Gomero, Materiales didácticos (Educational Materials on the Silbo Gomero).

In addition to the compulsory learning of Silbo Gomero at the primary and secondary level, an Island School of Silbo Gomero was established for post-secondary students who wish to continue to train in Silbo Gomero until they become accredited professional instructors.

Students of the Island School work to become capable of teaching Silbo Gomero to not only their fellow citizens, but also tourists who visit La Gomera. This facilitates the sustainability of the revitalization and also works towards language maintenance. 
 

Learning Silbo Gomero at school

Thereafter, the Ministry of Education, Universities, Culture and Sport of the Canary Islands developed a staff training plan in order to ensure that the elderly expert whistlers can be replaced in the near future by qualified professional teachers with relevant diplomas. This comprised training courses on proficiency in and teaching of Silbo Gomero. The training plan was launched in 2007, with the participation of 18 teachers.

Besides the implementation of education policies, the authorities also sought to strengthen the corpus of Silbo Gomero by developing a project to digitize all recorded audio material. Local, national and worldwide distribution of documentaries on Silbo Gomero were also made. The government also raised the status of Silbo Gomero by selecting the whistled language of La Gomera via the National Historical Heritage Council in the nominations for inclusion on the 2009 Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Members of the Gomeran community treasure Silbo Gomero as part of the island’s identity and use the whistled language in traditional rituals and festivities on the island. One of these includes bajadas, which are processions dedicated to the Virgin or the patron saints of the community. On 15 March 1999, Silbo Gomero was declared as part of the historical ethnographic heritage of the Canary Islands. The annual celebration of School Encounters with Silbo Gomero was also inaugurated in La Gomera.

More information: Hello Canary Islands

In 2005, the monument to Silbo Gomero was inducted in Garajonay National Park.

According to different studies, the Silbo Gomero Language has between 2 and 4 vowels and between 4 and 10 consonants. The language is a whistled form of a dialect of Spanish. Silbo replaces each vowel or consonant with a whistling sound. Whistles are distinguished according to pitch and continuity. As with other whistled forms of non-tonal languages, Silbo works by retaining approximately the articulation of ordinary speech, so the timbre variations of speech appear in the guise of pitch variations.

Silbo Gomero is a complex language to learn, with its whistling techniques requiring physical precision, and a strength of the body parts used in mechanism of the language, that can only be acquired with practice.

Silbo Gomero uses the tongue, lips and hands of the users, differing greatly from conventional language, which uses the mouth cavity to blend and contrast several acoustic frequencies. The whistling mechanism, in contrast, is limited to only emitting a single basic pitch between 1,000 and 3,000 hertz. The physical precision comes in the skill of the whistler being able to vary the frequencies at different speeds and to start and stop the production of the sound waves.
 

Teaching Silbo Gomero at school

This technique is handed down within La Gomera’s community, with unchanged teaching methods that date back to the late nineteenth century.

The same pitch can represent many sounds, so it has much fewer phonemes than Spanish. This means that communication in Silbo can be ambiguous at times. Context and appropriate choice of words are thus important for effective communication.

The vowels of Silbo Gomero are described roughly as sustained lines of high and low frequency that are distinct from each other.

The high frequency /i/ vowel represents the /i/, /e/ vowels of the spoken language being whistled, while the low frequency whistle of the dark /a/ vowel represents the vowels /a/, /o/, /u/. It is said that it is not possible to produce any vowels with intermediary frequencies as the whistling mechanism does not have the same functions that the vocal mechanism possess.

The theory that Silbo Gomero has only two vowels was theorised by Ramón Trujillo of the University of La Laguna in his published book El Silbo Gomero. Análisis Lingüístico in 1978. His work, containing almost a hundred spectrograms, concludes in a theory that there are only two vowels and four consonants in the Silbo Gomero language. In Trujillo's work Silbo's vowels are given one quality, that of pitch, being either high or low. However, in a more recent study, the work of Julien Meyer gives a statistical analysis of the vowels of Silbo showing that there are 4 vowels statistically distinguished in production and that they are also perceived so.

More information: BBC

Also in 2005, Annie Rialland of the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle published an acoustic and phonological analysis of Silbo based on new materials, showing that, not only gliding tones, but also intensity modulation plays a role in distinguishing different whistled sounds.

Trujillo's 2005 collaboration with Gomeran whistler Isidro Ortiz and others revises his earlier assertions to state that 4 vowels are indeed perceived, and describes in detail the areas of divergence between his empirical data and Classe’s phonetic hypotheses. Despite Trujillo's 2005 work acknowledging the existence of 4 vowels, his 2006 bilingual work, El Silbo Gomero. Nuevo estudio fonológico, inexplicably reiterates his 1978 two-vowel theory. Trujillo's 2006 work directly addresses many of Rialland's conclusions, but it seems that at the time of that writing he was unaware of Meyer's work.

A Silbo Gomero whistler, La Gomera

Meyer suggests that there are 4 vowel classes of /i/, /e/, /a/, /u, o/. However Meyer goes on to say that there are 5 perceived vowels with significant overlap. Rialland (2005) and Trujillo (1978) both agree that the harmonic of the whistle matches the second formant of the spoken vowels.

Spoken /a/'s F2 and whistled /a/'s H1 match in their frequency (1480 Hz). However, there is a disconnect in harmonics and formants near the frequency basement. Spoken speech has a wide range of F2 frequencies (790 Hz to 2300 Hz), whistles are limited to between 1200 Hz and 2400 Hz. Vowels are therefore shifted upwards at the lower end (maintaining 1480 Hz as /a/) increasing confusion between /o/, spoken F2 freq 890 Hz, whistled <1300 Hz, and /u/, spoken freq 790 Hz, Whistled <<1300 Hz.

In whistling the frequency basement must be raised to the minimum whistle harmonic of 1000 Hz reducing frequency spacing in the vowels, which increases misidentification in the lower vowels.

Consonants in Silbo Gomero are modifications of the vowel-based melody line or vocal line. They may be rising or falling or can also be modified by being broken, continuous or occlusive.

More information: Francesca Phillips

The documentation on the official Silbo Gomero page on the UNESCO website is in line with Trujillo’s 1978 study. Trujillo (1978) suggested that the consonants are either rises or dips in the melody line which can be broken or continuous. Further investigation by Meyer and by Rialland suggest that vowels are stripped to their inherent class of sound which is communicated in the whistle in these ways: voice (/k/ vs /ɡ/) is transmitted by the whistled feature [-continuity].

A silent pause in the whistle communicates [+voice] (/ɡ/), while a [+continuous] consonant gives the quality [-voice] (/k/). Placement of the consonant (dental, palatal, fricative) is transmitted in whistle by the loci, the sharpness or speed, of the formant transitions between vowels.

Educational Materials on the Silbo Gomero

Consonant classes are simplified into four classes. Extra high loci, near vertical formant loci, denotes affricates and stridents, rising loci denotes alveolar, medial, loci just above the vowel formant, denotes palatal, and falling, low loci, denotes pharyngeal, labial, and fricative. 

This gives 8 whistled consonants, but including tone gradual decay, with intensity falling off, as a feature on continuous and interrupted sounds gives 10 consonants. In these situations gradual decay is given [+voice], and continuous is given [+liquid].

The representation of /s/ is actually treated as a broken high pitch when whistled in Silbo. However, in the spoken language, /s/ is a continuous high pitch consonant. There are two reasons for this anomaly. Firstly, in functional terms, the /s/ consonant is high in frequency, thus being extremely useful. Secondly, as the continuous high-pitched consonant of Silbo already represents many other consonants of the spoken language (/l/, /ʎ/, /n/, /ɲ/, /ɾ/, /r/, /d/ and /ʝ/), it would be very confusing to add on to the extensive list. Thus, as the broken high-pitched consonant does not fully represent /t͡ʃ/ and /t/, it can be used to represent the frequently used /s/ consonant.

Last studies have shown that Silbo Gomero speakers process the whistled register in the same way as the standard spoken language. Studies carried out by Manuel Carreiras of the University of La Laguna and David Corina of the University of Washington published research on Silbo in 2004 and 2005. Their study involved two participant groups of Spanish speakers. One group of Spanish speakers spoke Silbo, while the other group did not. Results obtained from monitoring the participants' brain activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging have shown that while non-speakers of Silbo merely processed Silbo as whistling, speakers of Silbo processed the whistling sounds in the same linguistic centers of the brain that processed Spanish sentences.

More information: Busuu

 The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

LA GOMERA, VISITING GARAJONAY NATIONAL PARK

Tina Picotes in San Sebastián de la Gomera

Today, The Grandma is visiting La Gomera with her friends Claire Fontaine, Joseph de Ca'th Lon and Tina Picotes, who has just arrived to the island.

The Grandma loves volcanoes, native tribes cultures and languages and visiting La Gomera is a great privilege for her because she can visit a volcanic island with an ancient history and with a singular language named the Silbo.

All friends have visited the Garajonay National Park a wonderful an amazing natural site considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Before visiting the park, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Grammar 16).

More information: Passive 1

La Gomera is one of the Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. With an area of 369.76 square kilometers, it is the second smallest of the seven main islands of this group. It belongs to the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Its capital is San Sebastián de La Gomera, where the headquarters of the Cabildo are located.

La Gomera is part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It is divided into six municipalities: Agulo, Alajeró, San Sebastián de La Gomera, Hermigua, Valle Gran Rey and  Vallehermoso.

The island government, Cabildo Insular, is located in the capital, San Sebastián. The island is of volcanic origin and roughly circular; it is about 22 kilometres in diameter. The island is very mountainous and steeply sloping and rises to 1,487 metres at the island's highest peak, Alto de Garajonay. Its shape is rather like an orange that has been cut in half and then split into segments, which has left deep ravines or barrancos between them.

The Grandma visits el Castillo del Mar, La Gomera

The uppermost slopes of these barrancos, in turn, are covered by the laurisilva or laurel rain forest, where up to 50 inches of precipitation fall each year.

The upper reaches of this densely wooded region are almost permanently shrouded in clouds and mist, and as a result are covered in lush and diverse vegetation: they form the protected environment of Garajonay National Park, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. The slopes are criss-crossed by paths that present varying levels of difficulty to visitors, and stunning views to seasoned hikers.

The central mountains catch the moisture from the trade wind clouds and yield a dense jungle climate in the cooler air, which contrasts with the warmer, sun-baked cliffs near sea level.

More information: Turismo de la Gomera

Between these extremes one finds a fascinating gamut of microclimates; for centuries, the inhabitants of La Gomera have farmed the lower levels by channelling runoff water to irrigate their vineyards, orchards and banana groves.

The official natural symbols associated with La Gomera are Columba junoniae, Paloma rabiche, and Persea indica, Viñátigo.

The local wine is distinctive and often accompanied with a tapa, snack, of local cheese, roasted pork, or goat meat. Other culinary specialities include almogrote, a cheese spread, miel de palma, a syrup extracted from palm trees, and escaldón, a porridge made with gofio flour.

The inhabitants of La Gomera have an ancient way of communicating across deep ravines by means of a whistled speech called Silbo Gomero, which can be heard 2 miles away. This whistled language is indigenous to the island, and its existence has been documented since Roman times.

Los Órganos Natural Monument, La Gomera

Invented by the original inhabitants of the island, the Guanches, Silbo Gomero was adopted by the Spanish settlers in the 16th century and survived after the Guanches were entirely assimilated.

When this means of communication was threatened with extinction at the dawn of the 21st century, the local government required all children to learn it in school. Marcial Morera, a linguist at the University of La Laguna has said that the study of silbo may help understand how languages are formed.

In the mountains of La Gomera, its original inhabitants worshipped their god, whom they called Orahan; the summit and centre of the island served as their grand sanctuary. Indeed, many of the natives took refuge in this sacred territory in 1489, as they faced imminent defeat at the hands of the Spaniards, and it was here that the conquest of La Gomera was drawn to a close.

More information: Everything, Everywhere

Modern-day archaeologists have found several ceremonial stone constructions here that appear to represent sacrificial altar stones, slate hollows, or cavities. It was here that the Guanches built pyres upon which to make offerings of goats and sheep to their god. This same god, Orahan, was known on La Palma as Abora and on Tenerife and Gran Canaria as Arocan. The Guanches also interred their dead in caves.

Today, saints, who are worshipped through village festivals, are principally connected with Christianity. But in some aspects, the Guanches’ god-like idealising of Gomeran uniqueness plays a role as well besides their pre-Christian and pre-colonial implication and shows strong local differences.

An autosomal study in 2011 found an average Northwest African influence of about 17% in Canary Islanders with a wide interindividual variation ranging from 0% to 96%. According to the authors, the substantial Northwest African ancestry found for Canary Islanders supports that, despite the aggressive conquest by the Spanish in the 15th century and the subsequent immigration, genetic footprints of the first settlers of the Canary Islands persist in the current inhabitants.

Parallelling mtDNA findings (50.1% of U6 and 10.83% of L haplogroups), the largest average Northwest African contribution (42.50%) was found for the samples from La Gomera. 

Visiting Garajonay Natural Park, La Gomera

Genetic drift could be responsible for the contrasting difference in Northwest African ancestry detected with maternal (51% of Northwest African lineages) and paternal markers, 0.3–10% of Northwest African lineages, in La Gomera. Alternatively, it could reflect the dramatic way the island was conquered, producing the strongest sexual asymmetry in the archipelago.

The festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patron saint of the island, is the Monday following the first Saturday of October. Every five years is celebrated the Bajada de la Virgen de Guadalupe, the Bringing the Virgin, from her hermitage in Puntallana to the capital. She is brought by boat to the beach of San Sebastián de La Gomera, where several people host her, and transported throughout the island for two months.

More information: Gomera Experience

Garajonay National Park is located in the center and north of the island of La Gomera. It was declared a national park in 1981 and a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. It occupies 40 km2 and it extends into each of the six municipalities on the island.

The park is named after the rock formation of Garajonay, the highest point on the island at 1,487 m. It also includes a small plateau whose altitude is 790-1,400 m above sea level.

The park provides the best example of Canarian laurisilva, a humid subtropical forest that in the Tertiary covered almost all of Southern Europe. It is also found on the Azores and the Madeira Islands. Laurus azorica, known as Azores laurel, or by the Portuguese names louro, loureiro, louro-da-terra, and louro-de-cheiro, can be found in the park, as well as Laurus novocanariensis, known as Canary laurel

More information: Altaï

Although named as a single type of forest, the national park englobes several varieties of forests. Most humid and protected valleys oriented to the North have the richest and most complex forests. It is known as valley laurisilva, a true subtropical rainforest where the largest laurel trees can be found. At higher altitudes, with less protection from wind and sun, the forest loses some of its more delicate species. Here it is called slope laurisilva, laurisilva de ladera. At the south the forest is mainly a mix of beech and heather, species adapted to the less humid atmosphere.

Visiting Garajonay National Park, La Gomera

Other attractions of the national park are the massive rocks that are found along the island. These are former volcanoes whose shapes have been carved by erosion.

Some, like the Fortaleza, fortress in Spanish, were considered sacred by the native islanders, as well as ideal refuges when attacked. The park is crossed by a large network of 18 footpaths, trekking being one of the main tourist activities in the island.

Many of the species of flora and fauna are endemic to the Macaronesian islands, the Canary Islands or La Gomera, and the Garajonay forest harbors a rich biota of understory plants, invertebrates, and birds and bats, including a large number of endemic species.

Two species of reptile, Gallotia gomerana (Gomeran lizard) and Chalcides viridanus (Gomeran skink), can be found. Amphibians include the stripeless tree frog, Hyla meridionalis.

The park is renowned as one of the best places to observe the two Canarian endemic pigeons, laurel pigeon (Columba junoniae) and Bolle's pigeon (Columba bollii).

More information: UNESCO

The peak and park are named after Guanche lore, the hapless lovers Gara and Jonay. Their romance evokes those of Romeo and Juliet and Hero and Leander. Gara was a princess of Agulo on La Gomera. During the festival of Beñesmén, it was customary for unmarried girls of Agulo to gaze at their reflections in the waters of Chorros del Epina. If the water was clear, they would find a husband; if it was cloudy, some misfortune would befall them. When Gara looked at the water, she saw her reflection clearly. However, she gazed too long and the sun's reflection blinded her temporarily. A wise man named Gerián told her that this meant that she needed to avoid all fire or else it would consume her.

Jonay was the son of the Guanche mencey or king of Adeje on Tenerife, who arrived on the island to celebrate these ceremonies. Jonay's participation in the ensuing games attracted the attention of Gara, and the two fell in love. Unfortunately, when the engagement was announced, the volcano Teide, visible from La Gomera, began to erupt as if in disapproval. This was interpreted as a bad omen and the couple’s respective parents broke the engagement.

Jonay was made to return to Tenerife, but one night, he swam across the channel that separated the two islands and rejoined his beloved. Their respective fathers ordered that the two be found. The lovers were soon trapped on a mountain, where they decided to take their own lives.

More information: The Telegraph

 All the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today.

Guanche Proverb

FORCES OF NATURE: ICEBERGS & VOLCANOES

Titanic

Today, The Bonds are still in Canary Islands. After climbing up Teide Mount, they have flown over Hierro Island to see the sea volcanoes and they have arrived to La Gomera to visit the Guanche Community. 

The family has revised some English grammar like Past Perfect vs. Past Simple, Present Perfect vs. Past Simple and Present and Past Perfect Continuous. 

After offering new prizes to the Queens of Carnival, David and Pedro Bond, the family has listened a beautiful and sad Mariona Bond's story about Paris and the Tour Eiffel and Noemí Bond has talked about innovation, resilience, creativity and imagination with the Barcelona Mobile World Congress and Steve Jobs like examples.

More information: Present Perfect Continuous & Past Perfect Continuous

Finally, the family has read a new chapter of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and they have been talking about the story of Titanic, a story of power against nature and about the broken dreams of the Irish immigration.

Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. 

The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain. 

Nassim Nicholas Taleb