The ancient whisting language

A whistle can be up to ten times louder than a scream, and when you can whistle a language, well, you can communicate over a very long distance. It can, for example, help you herd sheep over a great distance. In ancient times, whistling was also used as a means to communicate in war time. The art of  whistling a language is still practiced in small mountain villages of Greece, Turkey, and in the Amazon forest, but this art is dying with the older generation.

This whistling language, also known as "sfyria" is one of the rarest and most endangered languages in the world – a mysterious form of long-distance communication in which entire conversations, no matter how complex, can be whistled. For the last two millennia, the only people who have been able to sound and understand sfyria’s secret notes are the shepherds and farmers from this hillside hamlet, each of whom has proudly passed down the tightly guarded tradition to their children.

Today, there are only six people left on the planet who can still ‘speak’ this unspoken language
But in the last few decades, Antia’s population has dwindled from 250 to 37, and as older whistlers lose their teeth, many can no longer sound sfyria’s sharp notes. Today, there is only a handful of people left on the planet who can still ‘speak’ this unspoken language, and the numbers are dwindling. Then, the language will be lost forever.