题型：阅读选择 题类： 难易度：普通
湖州市长兴县华盛达实验学校2023-2024学年九年级上学期10月月考英语试题
Before the development of phones, the natives of the island of La Gomera were able to use a whistled language to communicate with each other from mountain peak to mountain peak. It is known as the Silbo Gomero.
Invented by the island's natives-Guanches, the Silbo Gomero was the only form that they used to communicate with others far away until the first half of the 20th century. During the 16th century, it was taught to Spanish settlers. Then it spread to other neighbouring islands and was used by much more people.
The whistled language has a vocabulary of over 4,000 words. The difficulty of this language lies in the fact that it replaces the five vowels of Spanish language with two clearly different whistles and twenty-two consonants of it with other four different whistles. People can tell the differences of the whistles according to how high or low the sound is and whether they are interrupted or continued.
However, with the rise of modern communications, the special language was dying out, and by the later half of the 20th century very few people still knew how to whistle in this manner. Luckily, the local government has managed to reverse this situation, mainly through laws that make it a required subject in schools across the island of La Gomera. Gradually, it is developed and practised by a large number of people. In 2009, the Silbo Gomero was claimed to be an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
Nowadays, the Silbo Gomero is also used during festivals and ceremonies. To prevent it from disappearing, the native people continue to make great effort. Although there's not a special visitor center to appreciate the amazement of the whistled language, that is not to say it won't be one in the future.
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