Morse Code, Silbo and Whistled languages

A recent Yahoo/Rueters news article about how Silbo
"speakers" process that language in the brain led me
to poke around the net for more information on Silbo
in particular and whistled languages in general.
I didn't find much, but lumping it in with morse code,
a kind of monotonic whistled language, I began to
wonder about the distinctions that are drawn in such
languages.

(Silbo is apparently a relex of Spanish, just as Morse
code is normally a relex of the radio operator's
native language.)

The article mentions that Silbo has 4 "consonants" and
4 "vowels" but doesn't give a clue as to what those
sound like when whistled.  Morse code obviously only
has two sounds, dot and dash, and the space between
letters, but a whistled language could have a richer
alphabet by using rising, falling or warbling tones,
etc.

All this led me to wonder about a language (from some
alien civilization, obviously) devised by a
civilization that had no vocal chords, but carried
around little two-tone or three-tone penny whistles to
talk with.

Just idle ruminations at this point. But it's an
interesting thought.

Reply