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Whistled Languages

  • Book
  • © 1976

Overview

Authors:
  1. René-Guy Busnel

    1. Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique Laboratorie d’Acoustique Animale, Domaine de Vilvert, C.N.R.Z., France

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  2. André Classe

    1. Glasgow, Great Britain

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Part of the book series: Communication and Cybernetics (COMMUNICATION, volume 13)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vii
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  2. Introduction and Historical Sketch

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 1-12

  3. Ecology

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 13-31

  4. Physics of the Signal; Range

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 32-43

  5. The Mechanism of Whistle Production

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 44-52

  6. Phonology and Phonetics of Whistled Speech

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 53-84

  7. Extra-Linguistic Information Contents of the Signal

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 85-95

  8. Whistling in the Animal Kingdom

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 96-106

  9. Conclusions

    • René-Guy Busnel, André Classe
    Pages 107-110

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 111-120
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Keywords

About this book

This monograph deals with curious and little-known acoustic systems of commun­ ication based on whistling that are in use at the present time in many parts of the world and have had, on the evidence available, even greater currency in the past. In spite of their wide distribution, they have not so far received the attention they might have been expected to attract: linguistically and in other ways they are most interesting. For it should be realized that they are much more than mere codes or conventional systems of signals; they function in exactly the same way as speech (in the sense we normally use the term), being in fact rather extraordinary realizations of the languages spoken in the re­ gions where they occur. They utilize the vocabulary, grammar and, in many cases to a large extent, the phonology of the local speech. However their phonetic system is profoundly modified acoustically and (in some cases less so) from the point of view of articulation, because the glottal tone of every­ day communication, the "voice", is repl aced by a whistl e which carries the in­ formation. The advantage of this procedure, from the point of view of the user, is a vastly increased range as well as, under certain circumstances, a degree of secrecy. It will be shown that whistled languages appear in two main, very different forms.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique Laboratorie d’Acoustique Animale, Domaine de Vilvert, C.N.R.Z., France

    René-Guy Busnel

  • Glasgow, Great Britain

    André Classe

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Whistled Languages

  • Authors: René-Guy Busnel, André Classe

  • Series Title: Communication and Cybernetics

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-46335-8

  • Publisher: Springer Berlin, Heidelberg

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1976

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-642-46337-2Published: 14 March 2012

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-642-46335-8Published: 08 March 2013

  • Series ISSN: 0340-0034

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VII, 117

  • Topics: Physics, general

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