Ancient 'whistling language' uses the entire brain to communicate

An ancient whistling language "spoken" by about 10,000 people in the mountains of northeastern Turkey has a distinct advantage over the lumbering mouth-speech the rest of us use — it uses the entire brain.

Until recently, researchers believed that language was isolated to the left side of the brain, but to fluent Turkish whistlers, the right side, known for its importance in understanding music, has an equal role, the New Scientist reports. Researchers suspect that in a case of a stroke affecting the left side of a whistler's brain, they'd likely be able to compensate for language loss with their right hemisphere.

But while whistlers are using their brains more fully than the rest of us, take solace in the big advantage spoken language has over whistling: "You can gossip with a mobile phone, but you can't do that with whistling because the whole valley hears," lead researcher Onur Güntürkün explained.

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