Silbo Gomero, the Whistled Language

La Gomera is cut by ravines so deep that two farms in plain sight of each other can be an hour apart on foot. Islanders solved that with a whistled register of Spanish, reducing vowels and consonants to pitch and interruption so that whole sentences carry several kilometres across a valley. It is not a code or a set of signals but the language itself, whistled. Radio, roads and telephones nearly finished it off, and since the late 1990s it has been a compulsory subject in the island's primary schools, which is why children can now do it better than some of their grandparents. Demonstrations are staged for visitors at a few stops.

The main sights

• A live demonstration - two whistlers exchanging sentences across a room or valley.
• The ravine landscape - the terrain that made a carrying language necessary.
• School practice - the reason the language survives at all today.
• Garajonay's laurel forest - the misty highland that divides the island's valleys.

When to go

Any time of year; the Canaries have no closed season and La Gomera stays mild. Demonstration timings are rarely published and depend on the day and the group, so ask locally on arrival rather than planning around them. Ferries fill in August and at Easter, and the last return to Tenerife leaves earlier than people expect.

Before you go

What most visitors hear is a short staged performance rather than a conversation, and genuine everyday use is now rare outside school and festivals. Getting there means a ferry and then slow, winding roads, so it is a full day committed. Anyone prone to seasickness or car sickness should think carefully about both legs.

Nearby

Garajonay's laurel forest, the Valle Gran Rey terraces and the Roque de Agando viewpoints.