Who needs cell phones when you can whistle?

This was the headline used by the SF Chronic when it published an AP wire story back in Nov. 2003 all about Silbo Gomero, the amazing whistled language of La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands. I've been thinking a lot about whistling lately, and remembered clipping this article. Unfortunately, the Chronic doesn't archive wire stories online, but through the wonders of the web I found it on the Indymedia Scotland site, which has the added appeal of being bilingual in Gaelic, another fading language. Anyway, wherever you read it, I think Sarah Andrews's article is fascinating, and worth a read. If you want to skip right to a short conversation in Silbo, click here.