岛上哨语回荡

文/拉斐尔·明德 译/秦书未

安东尼奥·马尔克斯·纳瓦罗坐在加那利群岛的一处悬崖上，向远处发出邀请：“过来吧，我们去杀猪。”他并没有说话，只是吹哨示意。

2远处，三位背包客突然停下脚步。他们听见了这尖厉的声音，也听见了回声在隔断他们的溪谷峭壁之间回荡。

371 岁的马尔克斯先生说，在他年轻的时候，这座岛陡峭崎岖的小路上走着的都是当地的牧羊人，而非游客。那时，他的“哨语”总能立马得到响亮而清晰的哨语回应。

4但这几个背包客没能领会他要传达的信息，很快便继续踏上了戈梅拉岛跋涉之旅。戈梅拉岛是加那利群岛的一个岛屿；加那利群岛是位于大西洋的一处火山群岛，属于西班牙。

5马尔克斯先生是一位骄傲的戈梅拉岛哨语守护者。他将戈梅拉岛哨语称为“我们岛上的诗歌”。他还说：“和诗歌一样，哨语无须有实际用处也能美妙而独特。”

6早在15 世纪，探险家就为日后西班牙征服戈梅拉岛开辟了道路，在他们的记述中就提到了岛上原住民所使用的哨语。几个世纪以来，这里的哨语不断发展完善，可与卡斯蒂利亚语相通。

7这种语言的正式名称为“戈梅拉哨语”，它以不同音高和音长的口哨声代替书写语言的字母。问题是，口哨声的种类比西班牙语字母表中的字母要少，于是一种声音可以有多种意思，这样就会引起误解。

82009 年，联合国教科文组织将戈梅拉哨语列入人类非物质文化遗产名录，并称其为“世界上唯一完备并有一个庞大社群使用的哨语”。这一“庞大社群”指的就是戈梅拉岛上的22000 位居民。

9然而，随着吹口哨不再是交流的必要手段，戈梅拉哨语几乎全凭一部1999 年出台的法律才得以存活。这部法律将戈梅拉哨语规定为岛上学校的必修课程。

10近日的一个上午，在港口城市圣地亚哥的一所学校里，一整个班的六岁孩子能轻松辨别出代表不同颜色或一周七天的口哨声。

11然而，一把单词放进完整的句子，就没那么容易辨别了。比如“穿蓝色鞋子的那个小孩儿叫什么名字？”好几个孩子争辩说他们听到的是代表“黄色”的口哨声。

12如果说理解某个口哨声代表什么意思并非总是轻而易举，那么发出正确的口哨声就更难了。大多数哨语人是把一个弯曲的指关节放进嘴里来吹，但有些人用一两根手指的指尖，还有少数人双手各用一根指头。

“唯一的准则就是看用哪根手指吹起来更容易。遗憾的是，有时候没有哪根手指头吹得响。”戈梅拉岛校内哨语课程协调人弗朗西斯科·科雷亚说，“甚至有些老人虽然从小就能完全听懂哨语，但从来没吹出过一个清晰的口哨音。”

13两个哨语人相互理解起来可能会很吃力，需要让对方重复刚才的话，尤其是在两人初次见面时，就好像操着不同口音讲同一种语言的陌生人。但是，“在两人吹了一阵子口哨之后，他们交流起来就和说西班牙语一样轻松了。”科雷亚先生说。

14和很多语言一样，不管吹不吹口哨，戈梅拉岛上都存在代沟。

1546 岁的农民西罗·梅萨·涅夫拉说，他和在学校学过哨语的年轻一代很难通过吹口哨来交流。至于原因，他说：“我是山里人，哨语是在家里学的，吹出来的都是过去我们家务农用的词，而这些孩子学的是文雅的哨语，他们的词汇我不会，对我来说有点儿太花哨了。”

16只要看看加那利群岛鲜明的地貌特征，就不难理解这里为何会使用哨语。在这里的大多数岛屿上，深深的溪谷从高高的山峰和高原一直延伸到海边，即使是很短距离的陆路行程，也需要花大量的时间和精力。口哨声比喊叫声传得更远——在有利的风力条件下能穿过好几个峡谷传到两英里外，因此哨语发展成了一种传递讯息的好方法。

17如今，戈梅拉岛以旅游业为支柱产业，这给像露西娅·达里亚斯·埃雷拉这样的年轻哨语人创造了机会。16 岁的露西娅每周在岛上的一家酒店表演一场哨语。

18但是自2020 年春天以来，新冠病毒不仅让这样的演出取消，也迫使学校限制哨语教学。

19为了防范病毒传播，如今孩子们每周上哨语课都是听哨语录音，而不是亲身实践。

20对于学生们来说还有一个困难，就是他们在校外没有多少机会练习哨语。在前文提到的那个班里，问这些六岁的孩子谁在家有机会讲哨语，17个人中只有五个举了手。

21尽管如此，在镇上相遇时，有些青少年还是很喜欢用哨语互相打招呼的，他们也乐意有机会用周围很多大人听不懂的哨语聊天。有些孩子的父母上学时，哨语还未纳入必修课程，还有些孩子的父母成年后才在岛上定居。

22不管15 岁埃琳·格哈茨对手机有多么爱不释手，从她的话中还是能听出，她很愿意提高她的哨语水平并为守护这座小岛的传统尽一份力。

“这是一种向过去生活在这里的人们致敬的方式。”她说，“哨语使我们能牢记这里最初是什么样子，牢记我们并不是靠科技发展起来的，我们有淳朴的起源。” □

Sitting atop a cliff in the Canary Islands, Antonio Márquez Navarro issued an invitation—“Come over here,we’re going to slaughter the pig”—without speaking a word: He whistled it.

2In the distance, three visiting hikers stopped dead in their tracks at the piercing sound and its echo bouncing off the walls of the ravine that separated them.

3Mr. Márquez, 71, said that in his youth, when local shepherds rather than tourists walked the steep and rugged footpaths of his island, his news would have been greeted right away by a responding whistle, loud and clear.

4But his message was lost on these hikers, and they soon resumed their trek1trek 长途跋涉，艰难的旅程（尤指在山区）。on La Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, a volcanic archipelago in the Atlantic that is part of Spain.

5Mr. Márquez is a proud guardian of La Gomera’s whistling language, which he called “the poetry of my island.”And, he added, “like poetry, whistling does not need to be useful in order to be special and beautiful.”

6The whistling of the Indigenous people of La Gomera is mentioned in the 15th-century accounts of the explorers who paved the way for the Spanish conquest of the island. Over the centuries,the practice was adapted to communicating in Castilian Spanish2从西班牙占领戈梅拉岛起，哨语逐渐成为该岛西班牙方言的变体。Silbo 哨语一词正是由西班牙语中silbar（吹口哨）这个单词演化而来。这套口哨语言把西班牙语中的元音和辅音都用特定的不同频率的口哨声替换。其中两种特别的口哨声代替了西班牙语中的五个元音，而另外四种口哨声代替了各种辅音，可以组合出4000 多个“词汇”。Castilian Spanish 卡斯蒂利亚语，西班牙全国性官方语言。.

7The language, officially known as Silbo Gomero, substitutes whistled sounds that vary by pitch and length for written letters. Unfortunately, there are fewer whistles than there are letters in the Spanish alphabet, so a sound can have multiple meanings, causing misunderstandings.

8In 2009, the island’s language was added by UNESCO to its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity;the United Nations agency described it as “the only whistled language in the world that is fully developed and practiced by a large community,” in reference to La Gomera’s 22,000 inhabitants.

9But with whistling no longer essential for communication, Silbo’s survival mostly relies on a 1999 law that made teaching it an obligatory part of La Gomera’s school curriculum.

10On a recent morning at a school in the port town of Santiago, a classroom of 6-year-olds had little difficulty identifying the whistling sounds corresponding to different colors, or the days of the week.

11Things got trickier when the words were incorporated into full sentences,like “What is the name of the child with the blue shoes?” A couple of the children argued that they had instead heard the whistling sound for “yellow.”

12If interpreting a whistle isn’t always easy, making the correct sounds can be even harder. Most whistlers insert one bent knuckle into the mouth, but some use instead the tip of one or two fingers, while a few use a finger from each hand.

“The only rule is to find whichever finger makes it easier to whistle, and sometimes unfortunately nothing works at all,” said Francisco Correa, the coordinator of La Gomera’s school whistling program. “There are even some older people who have understood Silbo perfectly since childhood, but never got any clear sound to come out of their mouth.”

13Two whistlers might struggle to understand each other, particularly during their first encounters—and need to ask each other to repeat sentences—like strangers who speak the same language with different accents. But “after whistling together for a while, their communication becomes as easy as if speaking Spanish,” Mr. Correa said.

14As is the case in many languages,whether whistled or not, there is a generation gap on La Gomera.

15Ciro Mesa Niebla, a 46-year-old farmer, said he struggled to whistle with a younger generation trained at school because, he said, “I’m a mountain guy who learned at home to whistle the words our family used to farm, but I don’t have the vocabulary of these kids who learn salon whistling, which is a bit too fancy for me.”

16With its distinct geography, it’s easy to see why whistling came into use on the Canaries; on most of the islands,deep ravines run from high peaks and plateaus down to the ocean, and plenty of time and effort are required to travel even a short distance overland. Whistling developed as a good alternative way to deliver a message, with its sound carrying farther than shouting—as much as two miles across some canyons and with favorable wind conditions.

17Nowadays, La Gomera relies heavily on tourism, which has created an opportunity for some young whistlers like Lucía Darias Herrera, 16, who has a weekly whistling show at an island hotel.

18Since last spring, however, the coronavirus has not only canceled such shows, but also forced schools to limit their whistling instruction.

19So as a precaution against spreading the virus, the children now spend their weekly whistling lesson listening to recordings of Silbo, rather than whistling themselves.

20An added difficulty for the students is that they don’t always have much opportunity to practice Silbo outside of school. In the class of 6-year-olds, only five of 17 raised their hands when asked if they had a chance to whistle at home.

21Still, some teenagers enjoy whistling greetings to each other when they meet in town and welcome the chance to chat without many of the adults around them understanding. Some had parents who went to school before learning Silbo became mandatory, or who settled on the island as adults.

22However much she is attached to her cellphone, Erin Gerhards, 15,sounded keen to improve her whistling and help safeguard the traditions of her island.

“It is a way to honor the people that lived here in the past,” she said. “And to remember where everything came from,that we didn’t start with technology, but from simple beginnings.” ■