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Whistle While You Work

Posted by michael on from the whistling-dixie dept.

kukickface writes "Have you ever watched Star Wars and been amazed that Human beings could understand what R2D2 is saying? An ancient yet almost dead language called Silbo Gomero seems to be reality's closest equivalent. Could this type of language be used in the future to ease natural language processing pains?"

4 of 520 comments (clear)

  1. Imagine this other African language..... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    as loud as that. The Ju/'hoansi language made famous by Nixau in the Gods Must Be Crazy. Could you imagine that kind of clicking radiating for two miles?

    It's so nice that they are keeping it going. It was Stalin that said "Take away their language, take away their souls". Imagine the good that the Navajo talkers did in WW II. Would've been a shame if we didn't have them. The war would have been WAY tougher.

    1. Re:Imagine this other African language..... by DLWormwood · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Imagine the good that the Navajo talkers did in WW II. Would've been a shame if we didn't have them. The war would have been WAY tougher.

      Off-topic, I know, but you can actually get some of the code via declassified documents...

      From that page...

      NAMES OF COUNTRIES
      AFRICA...ZHIN-NI................BLACKIES
      CHINA....CEH-YEHS-BESI..........BRAIDED HAIR
      ITALY....DOH-HA-CHI-YALI-TCHI...STUTTER
      JAPAN....BEH-NA-ALI-TSOSIE......SLANT EYE

      Amazing how Native Americans were so politically incorrect then, no? (-;

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  2. Beneficial for Many by mlmitton · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This was really interesting to me personally. I have a young nephew whose vocal chords don't work, and it doesn't look like he'll ever be able to talk normally. However, there's no reason to think that he won't be able to learn to whistle. He's still quite young, but he's already learned various clicks and pops that he can make with his mouth to get your attention. But if he could learn to whistle, and associate a vocabulary with that whistling, it would obviously help him communicate. I suppose there are quite a few mute people that could benefit from this. Who else could benefit?

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    "My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulfate hair."
  3. Re:Signing by CODiNE · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You have no idea how many companies are trying to get the deaf video-relay market. I have a Sorenson VP-100 here, works pretty good. You punch in the phone number you want and it connects to their interpretors at the nearest center... that person uses a head-set phone and I can talk to hearing people over the "phone". Of course deaf connect directly to each other...

    Videophones are common among the deaf, the major players I know on the West Coast are Sorenson, Sprint, IP-Relay, and HandsOn. Sorenson gives them away for free, others require you buy your own webcam. You hearing folks should thank us, we're setting up the the base market of videophones for ya. Start with the deaf, spread to the Uni's and Community Colleges, hearing people who learn ASL buy webcams so they can talk to deaf people in sign langauge... they tell their friends to buy one, or show them how to use their webcams... finally there's people who have videphones to call! Now people have incentive to buy them. :)

    -Don.

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