You'll Be Stunned by What Replaced Words on This Island

Bright Side

Imagine living on an island where people don’t need words to communicate—they just whistle! That’s the reality on La Gomera, one of Spain's Canary Islands, where an ancient whistling language called Silbo Gomero is still alive. It’s like something out of a movie—people use different pitches and tones to "whistle" entire conversations across valleys and cliffs. This unique language was developed to overcome the island’s rugged terrain, and it works better than shouting because the whistles carry much farther. It’s even taught in schools now to make sure it doesn’t disappear. If you thought words were the only way to communicate, think again—this island proves the power of sound in the most amazing way!  Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me

Transcript

00:00Your boat docks at one of the smallest of the Canary Islands, off the northwestern coast

00:04of Africa.

00:06Some peace and quiet, finally.

00:08This place isn't as touristy as some other islands you've been to.

00:12Its main sights are a house where Christopher Columbus stayed on his first transatlantic

00:16voyage in numerous hills.

00:18You can hear the sounds of the waves and the birds and… wait, was that someone whistling

00:23in the distance?

00:24The whistle is soon answered by another one in a different tone.

00:28The guide explains it's not just some teenagers playing around.

00:31The guys are actually busy preserving one of the most unusual languages in the world.

00:37It's Silbo Gomero, and it's only spoken on La Gomera Island.

00:41And no, the locals aren't all opera singers or musicians.

00:45This beautiful way of communication was born out of necessity.

00:49As you see, the terrain here on La Gomera is basically going from hilltop to hilltop,

00:54with deep ravines in between.

00:56So imagine you have an important message to deliver to someone living on the other

01:00side of the ravine.

01:01You'd have to climb up and down and up and down.

01:04I'm getting a bit tired.

01:06Shouting whole sentences in some regular language won't take you far, unless you have some

01:11special equipment.

01:12Plus, it would be quite disturbing.

01:14So why don't we try to whistle the message and send it across several miles this way?

01:20That was probably the thinking that the locals had when they decided to announce important

01:24events, request livestock, and warn of approaching danger using a drifting, piercing sound.

01:31The language has existed for several centuries, although no one knows exactly who invented

01:36it or when.

01:37We can only be sure that the first European settlers set foot on this land in the 15th

01:42century, and Silbo Gomero was already a thing back then.

01:46The local population of North Africans originally used whistles to communicate.

01:52And it wasn't just some musical gibberish.

01:54The whistles reproduced their language consisting of words.

01:57The Spanish then adapted the whistling language to their own.

02:01So the Silbo Gomero you can master now uses six kinds of sounds.

02:06Two of the whistles stand for the five spoken vowels in Spanish, and the remaining replace

02:11the 22 consonants.

02:13All the whistlers have to do is to make sounds longer or shorter to mimic the real words.

02:18The language has over 4,000 of them.

02:22Most proficient speakers, or rather, whistlers, use different methods to make sounds and can

02:27recognize others by the accent of their whistle.

02:30But to make it more clear, most whistlers first introduce themselves and name the recipient

02:35of the message.

02:36When the recipient understands the message, they respond with a whistle, which means bueno

02:41bueno.

02:43In the 1950s, Silbo Gomero was so popular on the island that whistlers had to wait in

02:48line to deliver their messages.

02:50They were mostly farmers who needed to share instructions with others.

02:54In the following decades, most of the agricultural lands were abandoned, and many of the workers

02:59left, so whistling across the valleys was becoming less and less common.

03:04In the 1990s, with all the new forms of communication spreading and new roads being built on the

03:09island, the local authorities got really concerned about the future of their unique language.

03:15They added it to the elementary school program.

03:18In 2009, UNESCO officially acknowledged the language as a cultural heritage.

03:23So, if you're good at whistling, you could tell everybody back home you've mastered

03:28a new language while traveling.

03:29Hopefully, there won't be any real Silbo Gomero speakers nearby.

03:34Don't feel like whistling?

03:35Well, then, you might appreciate the language of the Parajas, who hide deep in the Amazon

03:41rainforest in Brazil.

03:43These guys literally live in the present.

03:45They don't create myths.

03:47Only what they see right here, right now is real.

03:50It's also why they don't make up complicated sentences in different tenses.

03:54They only describe what they know and see.

03:57The good news is that there are just 8 consonants and 3 vowels.

04:00The bad news is it's based on tones and stresses a lot.

04:04There are no words for numbers.

04:06There is a small amount and a larger amount.

04:09All, each, every, most, and few don't exist either.

04:14If you're still into learning their language, don't expect a lesson on colors.

04:18There are just no words for them.

04:20A red cop is not red, it's the color of a berry everyone in the tribe knows.

04:25The Parajas like to mean business, so there's no room for fluff in their language.

04:30Instead of saying thank you, they give each other gifts or do something nice.

04:34They also use suffixes that replace whole phrases.

04:38For example, instead of saying, I know my neighbor has picked up the flower because

04:42I saw her do it, they'd use just one suffix, meaning that you're certain because you saw

04:47it with your own eyes.

04:49They like to ask direct questions like, where is the hut, and answer them without any special

04:54words.

04:55It's by the river.

04:57Sound way too complicated?

04:59How about a language that has the smallest alphabet ever, with only 12 letters and 11

05:04sounds?

05:05Around 4,300 people who live on an island to the east of New Guinea have the pleasure

05:10of using Rhotokis as their language.

05:13Except for a rather limited alphabet, Rhotokis has a rather regular word order.

05:18Adjectives and pronouns come before the nouns they modify.

05:237 million people in South Africa use Kausa language to communicate.

05:27It's a language based on three types of clicks, and the only way to feel the difference between

05:32words is by using a system of tones.

05:35If you want to master this language, plan to stay here a while.

05:40Aymara can hardly be called a rare language because it has around 2 million speakers and

05:45is one of the official languages of Bolivia and Peru.

05:49But it definitely deserves a shout-out as a super original language because of its tense

05:54system.

05:55The feature is seen as something that lies behind you and not in front of you like we're

05:59used to.

06:00It's because it's something we don't know anything about and we can't see it, so it's

06:05behind us.

06:06I know, I don't get it either.

06:08But anyway, another cool thing, nouns don't have gender.

06:12And you gotta thank Aymara for the word alpaca.

06:16Aww.

06:17Tujuca language is way less spread, with only around 1,000 speakers living in Brazil and

06:23Colombia.

06:24Tujuca has over 100 genders for words.

06:27And it's one of those languages that pile up morphemes to build super long words that

06:31replace entire sentences.

06:34Here's what the phrase, I do not know how to write, would look like in Tujuca.

06:39Don't even ask.

06:40I won't read it for you.

06:41It's above my pay grade.

06:44I need an Advil.

06:45My head is starting to ache from all that linguistic diversity.

06:48Why don't we just invent one simple language that all people around the world could study

06:54and never need to use a translator again?

06:57When I get a Nobel Prize for my idea, I will… oh, wait.

07:01Of course, someone already had that idea.

07:04A Polish ophthalmologist created Esperanto back in 1887.

07:09It is the most successful artificial language so far, with over 100,000 speakers.

07:15If you have experience with any European languages, mostly French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian,

07:21English, German, and, of course, the language creator's native Polish, you should have

07:26no trouble understanding Esperanto.

07:29It derived roots from these languages and uses a really simple rule.

07:33You spell the words the way you pronounce them.

07:36You'll easily recognize different parts of speech by their endings.

07:39Nouns, for example, have no gender and end in O. Verbs only have one form for each tense

07:46or mood.

07:47I go, they go, he or she goes.

07:49There will be one verb form for all of them.

07:52There's a whole bunch of suffixes that you can add to word roots to change the meaning.

07:56And here comes my personal favorite.

07:59There are 16 rules, and not a single exception.

08:03That there might've helped my language grade back in high school.

08:07That's it for today!

08:10So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your

08:15friends!

08:16Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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