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Villagers in Kuşköy, in the mountains of Giresun on Turkey's Black Sea coast, speak a whistled form of Turkish that carries for kilometres across the valleys. UNESCO added it to its list of heritage in need of urgent safeguarding in 2017.

UNESCO, 2017

LanguageHistory

The story behind the card

Kuşköy lies in the Çanakçı district of Giresun province. Kuş dili, 'bird language', is not a separate tongue but Turkish itself, with vowels and consonants turned into rising and falling whistles loud enough to cross terrain that would take an hour to walk. Almost anything can be said: news, invitations, warnings. A 2015 study by the biopsychologist Onur Güntürkün found that while ordinary speech is processed mainly in the brain's left hemisphere, listeners used both hemispheres more evenly for whistled Turkish. Since mobile phones arrived, fewer young people have learned it and most fluent whistlers are now older, which is why UNESCO listed it as in need of urgent safeguarding.

Türkçe oku
Giresun'un dağlık Kuşköy'ünde ve çevre köylerde insanlar, sesi vadilerin üzerinden kilometrelerce öteye ulaşan ıslıklı bir Türkçeyle anlaşır. UNESCO bu geleneği 2017'de acilen korunması gereken kültürel miras listesine aldı.
UNESCO, 2017

Kuşköy, Giresun'un Çanakçı ilçesine bağlıdır. Kuş dili ayrı bir dil değil, Türkçenin ta kendisidir: Ünlüler ve ünsüzler, yürüyerek bir saatte aşılacak araziyi geçebilecek kadar güçlü, inip çıkan ıslık seslerine dönüştürülür. Bu yolla hemen her şey konuşulabilir; haber verilir, davet edilir, uyarı yapılır. Biyopsikolog Onur Güntürkün'ün 2015'te yayımlanan araştırmasına göre sıradan konuşmayı dinlerken ağırlıklı olarak beynin sol yarısı çalışırken, ıslıklı Türkçeyi dinleyenlerde iki yarı daha dengeli devreye giriyor. Cep telefonları yaygınlaştıktan sonra bu dili öğrenen genç azaldı ve iyi ıslıkla konuşanların çoğu artık yaşlı. UNESCO'nun geleneği acil koruma listesine almasının nedeni de bu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Turkish bird language
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