Whistled Christmas Wishes

 A very HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all and wishing you a healthy and peaceful new year. The above short video was published some years ago by La Gomera's governmental tourism department and conveys festive greetings in the island's unique whistling language called El Silbo (click to find out more...)

Praise from Britain

                    '' Head to La Gomera for gorgeous scenery / Getty Images/iStockphoto '' (The Independent)

''It’s the most depressing day of the year, so here are some of the 

best short breaks to beat the January blue''

...'' Best for winter sun: La Gomera

The Canary Islands are as varied in climate as they are in style. Those seeking warm winter weather may want to head to Tenerife, which rarely dips below 17 degrees and is fast becoming a foodie hotspot.

La Gomera, meanwhile, is much quieter and easy to reach from Tenerife and La Palma. The second smallest of the main islands, it's ideal for hiking, discovering the unique Silbo Gomera "whistling language" and quaffing wines from some of Europe’s oldest vines. ''...

Above image and text are from a recent article on 'Blue Monday' which appeared in the UK daily The Independent  on January 15th, 2018.

BLUE MONDAY: TOP 10 WEEKEND BREAKS TO ESCAPE SADDEST DAY OF THE YEAR

Can you whistle a poem in English ?

El Silbo teacher Jesus,  here whistling
 it skilfully without the use of his hands

That's the question posed by poet Albert Pellicer of the Contemporary Poetic Research Centre of the Royal Halloway University of London. The professor and author has written a poem called Breath of Sense which explores the El Silbo whistling language of La Gomera and for quite some time he'd been hoping to try if this poem could be whistled in the El Silbo language. He's now teamed up with the singer/songwriter and El Silbo master Rogelio Botanz and travelled to La Gomera to put it to the test here. With the financial support of La Gomera's local government six students from Tenerife travelled to La Gomera to interpret the poem through El Silbo. The artist Helen Petts will compile a video of the experiment with the landscape of La Gomera that gave rise to El silbo as a dramatic backdrop. The video is being shot for the universities of Kingston and Birkbeck who also do contemporary poetics research in collaboration with Pellicer. The group is due to leave today to publish their findings.

Well, if you've ever been on one of the excursion tours on La Gomera you'd know that the El Silbo demonstration given during the lunch stop always includes whistling in whatever language the guests want and the whistler will gladly whistle even your name, no matter how complicated. El Silbo whistles are phonetic and can be employed in any language, as words and phrases are formed by the varying pitch of the whistling. On La Gomera, the whistling is quite complicated, with varying lengths, ranges, pauses and emphasis on vowels and consonants.

The outcome of this new poetic experiment can only be positive and it will foster the interest in this ancient form of communication internationally even on an academic level.