Issue date: 07 Nov, 2019
INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE. SILBO GOMERO
Ten years ago the Silbo Gomero was declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.
The Silbo Gomero is an articulated, non-conventional whistled register, that allows the unlimited exchange of messages using the characteristic sounds of the spoken language.
The inhabitants of this Canary island developed this language as a result of communication needs to facilitate the coexistence and survival in an environment, in this case a geographically complicated one.
The Silbo Gomero is the principal expression of the popular culture of La Gomera and it its most important hallmark.
This language has passed from generation to generation, generally within the family and this is what has allowed it to have survived until today, unlike many other types of language, including spoken languages and dialects.
The whistle is produced by introducing one or more fingers in your mouth, though it can also be done without fingers, in such a way that when blowing the air with a certain intensity and rhythm, playing with the fingers and the tongue, a diversity of sounds are uttered imitating the natural language.
In favourable conditions, the message can reach a distance of several kilometres. If the decoder of the information is too far away, the information is delivered from one “silbador” (whistler) to another one until it reaches its final destination.
The new times and the arrival of new technologies put this cultural wonder in danger of becoming extinct. Thanks to the initiatives of diverse social agents on the islands, above all in La Gomera, they have managed to protect this whistled language with a specific legislation.
The stamp, which commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Silbo Gomero being declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage, features an illustration of a girl producing a message in this ancestral language with her fingers.
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