5 ms·

> "still speak in whistles" "still"? Why is having more degrees of expressiveness in a vocal language considered an anachronism?

brink 5y ago
Soon we will learn how to eradicate these so-called "whistlers".
- mc32 5y ago
  In NYC construction workers are having their whistling curbed because most of it was the of sexist kind or at least a sufficient number of recipients didn’t want them.
mypastself 5y ago
Your interpretation of the title is not supported by the article’s content. In fact, you’re agreeing with it.
- addingnumbers 5y ago
  They call whistling languages "vestiges," a "protolanguage," and baselessly speculate that they originate from less-evolved primates. The writer's tone keeps reverting to subtly dismissive and colonialist.
  - citrus1330 5y ago
    The article actually says the exact opposite. Can you read? Here's the quote: "That doesn’t mean that modern whistled speech is a vestigial remnant of those protolanguages, Meyer cautions. If whistling preceded voiced speech, those earliest whistles wouldn’t have needed to encode sounds produced by the vocal cords. But today’s whistled languages do, which means they arose later, as add-ons to conventional languages, not forerunners of them, Meyer says."
    - addingnumbers 5y ago
      Yes, clearly they recognized the need to backpedal somewhat from their long string of intimations that these languages have savage and primal qualities. Did you think that passage was a total non-sequitur? Are they cautioning you from believing something you would have no reason to believe? Or do you think they were aware they had unduly created that impression.
      - pcrh 5y ago
        On the contrary, they stress that using whistling to discover fundamentals of communication using sound does not imply that whistling was the original form of communication by sound.
        addingnumbers 5y ago
        They could have achieved the same effect by never suggesting that whistling languages are primal or antiquated in the first place. I suppose if I say "we shouldn't assume people who comment on HN posts are sad, lonely, and grumpy" I'm not being offensive or disrespectful. After all, I never said outright that anyone was any of those things. On the contrary, it actually says the exact opposite It's a trick of language called insinuation.
        pcrh 5y ago
        I think the point they are trying to make is that proto-language spoken by our ancestors would likely have had fewer components and reduced sophistication, as does whistling. So identifying the minimum requirements for comprehensible, yet sophisticated, communication by sound would possibly shed light on what paleo-speech was like...
    - sethammons 5y ago
      Your post would still work if you removed "Can you read?" but would be less hostile
mkotowski 5y ago
Probably they worded it this way (assuming good intentions, of course) because whistle-based language forms were created as a tool to combat communication hurdles in a challenging terrain. With the development of long-range communication, I would dare to say it is amazing that there are still practitioners of whistled speech.
- beardyw 5y ago
  I remember walking in Andalusia an coming across a shepherd sitting on a grass bank, holding his head in his hands, talking to his sheep. It seemed I had stepped back in time and felt it was a very special moment. Looking back I saw he was actually on his mobile phone. Other forms of communication are available.
  - momirlan 5y ago
    The shepherd i met in Romania had 2 cell phones. One for each side of the mountain
1123581321 5y ago
Read the article and you’ll have a better idea how to preserve this form of communication.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
Because languages gradually lose phoenetic features over time. Phonetic diversity is a primary method for determining the age of a language. Hawaiian is a recent language with just 8 consonants and !Kung is ancient with over 50 consonants. The same phenomenon occurs with DNA diversity. Here is an article with explanation: https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/bad-linguistics/phonemic-diversity-prove-africa-theory.html https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/bad-linguistics/phonemi...
- rvense 5y ago
  > Because languages gradually lose phoenetic features over time I don't think this is accurate. While it certainly does happen, new phonemic distinctions can certainly arise as languages change. The article you link to does not support the idea either, in fact it explicitly contradicts it: "Moreover, there is no bias towards decreasing the size of phonemic inventory over time as human populations moved out of Africa, as phonemes may be added as well as eliminated."
emodendroket 5y ago
For the same reason you don't see a lot of carrier pigeons anymore: it's been supplanted by something easier requiring less training.
citrus1330 5y ago
If you read the article you would know. "Despite their interest to both linguists and casual observers, whistled languages are disappearing rapidly all over the world, and some — such as the whistled form of the Tepehua language in Mexico — have already vanished. Modernization is largely to blame, says Meyer, who points to roads as the biggest factor. “That’s why you still find whistled speech only in places that are very, very remote, that have had less contact with modernity, less access to roads,” he says."
- newsbinator 5y ago
  > Modernization is largely to blame I'd replace "blame" with "thank": the simpler languages can become, and the fewer of them in daily use we can get to globally, the better for the entire species. I'd love an expressive and terse baseline human language. No problem if people still use other languages too, for cultural or historical reasons.
  - xj9 5y ago
    more language diversity is more fun. common languages are boring. folks should learn more languages, rather than less. its good for your brain too. here's to another babel moment!
    - newsbinator 5y ago
      Learning a lot of complicated things is good for your brain, like programming in various languages or playing various musical instruments. It's fun too. But having a multilingual globe comes at a massive, immeasurable cost. One of the greatest forces to improve economic opportunity and equality in the history of the world would be if everybody suddenly agreed on one simple, terse, expressive human language and switched to it, in all contexts except home life and shared spiritual or community services. No more IELTS tests, no more spelling bees, no more "why is 'wherefore art thou' not about Romeo's location?", no more notarized translation costs everywhere in the world... everybody gets equal access to all media created in all places (although of course there'll still be place-specific references in that media), etc If you were designing an ideal human world, the last thing you'd want to do is build a Tower of Babel on it.
dang 5y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

brink 5y ago

Soon we will learn how to eradicate these so-called "whistlers".

mc32 5y ago
In NYC construction workers are having their whistling curbed because most of it was the of sexist kind or at least a sufficient number of recipients didn’t want them.

mypastself 5y ago

Your interpretation of the title is not supported by the article’s content. In fact, you’re agreeing with it.

addingnumbers 5y ago
They call whistling languages "vestiges," a "protolanguage," and baselessly speculate that they originate from less-evolved primates. The writer's tone keeps reverting to subtly dismissive and colonialist.
- citrus1330 5y ago
  The article actually says the exact opposite. Can you read? Here's the quote: "That doesn’t mean that modern whistled speech is a vestigial remnant of those protolanguages, Meyer cautions. If whistling preceded voiced speech, those earliest whistles wouldn’t have needed to encode sounds produced by the vocal cords. But today’s whistled languages do, which means they arose later, as add-ons to conventional languages, not forerunners of them, Meyer says."
  - addingnumbers 5y ago
    Yes, clearly they recognized the need to backpedal somewhat from their long string of intimations that these languages have savage and primal qualities. Did you think that passage was a total non-sequitur? Are they cautioning you from believing something you would have no reason to believe? Or do you think they were aware they had unduly created that impression.
    - pcrh 5y ago
      On the contrary, they stress that using whistling to discover fundamentals of communication using sound does not imply that whistling was the original form of communication by sound.
      - addingnumbers 5y ago
        They could have achieved the same effect by never suggesting that whistling languages are primal or antiquated in the first place. I suppose if I say "we shouldn't assume people who comment on HN posts are sad, lonely, and grumpy" I'm not being offensive or disrespectful. After all, I never said outright that anyone was any of those things. On the contrary, it actually says the exact opposite It's a trick of language called insinuation.
        pcrh 5y ago
        I think the point they are trying to make is that proto-language spoken by our ancestors would likely have had fewer components and reduced sophistication, as does whistling. So identifying the minimum requirements for comprehensible, yet sophisticated, communication by sound would possibly shed light on what paleo-speech was like...
  - sethammons 5y ago
    Your post would still work if you removed "Can you read?" but would be less hostile

mkotowski 5y ago

Probably they worded it this way (assuming good intentions, of course) because whistle-based language forms were created as a tool to combat communication hurdles in a challenging terrain. With the development of long-range communication, I would dare to say it is amazing that there are still practitioners of whistled speech.

beardyw 5y ago
I remember walking in Andalusia an coming across a shepherd sitting on a grass bank, holding his head in his hands, talking to his sheep. It seemed I had stepped back in time and felt it was a very special moment. Looking back I saw he was actually on his mobile phone. Other forms of communication are available.
- momirlan 5y ago
  The shepherd i met in Romania had 2 cell phones. One for each side of the mountain

1123581321 5y ago

Read the article and you’ll have a better idea how to preserve this form of communication.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

Because languages gradually lose phoenetic features over time. Phonetic diversity is a primary method for determining the age of a language. Hawaiian is a recent language with just 8 consonants and !Kung is ancient with over 50 consonants. The same phenomenon occurs with DNA diversity. Here is an article with explanation: https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/bad-linguistics/phonemic-diversity-prove-africa-theory.html https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/bad-linguistics/phonemi...

rvense 5y ago
> Because languages gradually lose phoenetic features over time I don't think this is accurate. While it certainly does happen, new phonemic distinctions can certainly arise as languages change. The article you link to does not support the idea either, in fact it explicitly contradicts it: "Moreover, there is no bias towards decreasing the size of phonemic inventory over time as human populations moved out of Africa, as phonemes may be added as well as eliminated."

emodendroket 5y ago

For the same reason you don't see a lot of carrier pigeons anymore: it's been supplanted by something easier requiring less training.

citrus1330 5y ago

If you read the article you would know. "Despite their interest to both linguists and casual observers, whistled languages are disappearing rapidly all over the world, and some — such as the whistled form of the Tepehua language in Mexico — have already vanished. Modernization is largely to blame, says Meyer, who points to roads as the biggest factor. “That’s why you still find whistled speech only in places that are very, very remote, that have had less contact with modernity, less access to roads,” he says."

newsbinator 5y ago
> Modernization is largely to blame I'd replace "blame" with "thank": the simpler languages can become, and the fewer of them in daily use we can get to globally, the better for the entire species. I'd love an expressive and terse baseline human language. No problem if people still use other languages too, for cultural or historical reasons.
- xj9 5y ago
  more language diversity is more fun. common languages are boring. folks should learn more languages, rather than less. its good for your brain too. here's to another babel moment!
  - newsbinator 5y ago
    Learning a lot of complicated things is good for your brain, like programming in various languages or playing various musical instruments. It's fun too. But having a multilingual globe comes at a massive, immeasurable cost. One of the greatest forces to improve economic opportunity and equality in the history of the world would be if everybody suddenly agreed on one simple, terse, expressive human language and switched to it, in all contexts except home life and shared spiritual or community services. No more IELTS tests, no more spelling bees, no more "why is 'wherefore art thou' not about Romeo's location?", no more notarized translation costs everywhere in the world... everybody gets equal access to all media created in all places (although of course there'll still be place-specific references in that media), etc If you were designing an ideal human world, the last thing you'd want to do is build a Tower of Babel on it.

dang 5y ago

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html