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From: Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Crime movie used whistling language El Silbo as a plot element
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2025 19:00:15 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <slrnvqa1lv.1ehs.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>
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On 2025-02-05, Tilde <invalide@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> Caught some of the ending of this. Dunno
> how accurate it might be. Clever, though.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whistlers_(film)

I tracked it down and watched the on the whole rather forgettable
movie last night.  The end credits include an "El Silbo Consultant
and Coach" as well as three El Silbo whistlers.  About a third of
the way in, there is also a scene where they explain that it is a
code, not a language, how the Spanish vowels and consonants are
mapped to two and four whistles, respectively, and how they squeeze
the additional two vowels and two consonants of Romanian into the
system.

I might as well copy the blackboard displayed in the movie:

  A  = a, o, u, (ă)
  I  = i, e, (î)
  CH = ch, t, s, (ț, ș)
  Y  = d, n, l, y, r, ñ, ll, rr
  K  = p, k
  G  = b, f, m, g, j

So Cristi, the corrupt Romanian cop on the inside, whistles a message
in Romanian, and femme fatale Gilda translates and whistles it in
Spanish to the Spanish henchmen.

This is principally a Romanian movie, so most of the dialogue is
in Romanian, with some Spanish, plus English as the obligatory
lingua franca to bridge the language divide.  I noticed that Romanian
is full of French loanwords.  Formally, the movie is a
Romanian-French-German co-production and there is some contorted
international casting: Catrinel Marlon (Gilda) is Romanian, but her
previous acting credits are all in Italy.  Sabin Tambrea (Zsolt),
who looked oddly familiar, turns out to be German with Romanian
parents.  Antonio Buíl (Kiko) splits his acting between Spain and
French-speaking Switzerland.

> Many things go wrong and
> most characters get killed while Cristi,
> badly injured, ends up in hospital. Gilda
> finds out the room number and whistles to
> him to join her at a hotel in Singapore.

Unless he's just pretending, Cristi's injury has caused him to lose
his ability to speak, but he can still communicate in Silbo.  Which
doesn't make sense from a linguistic/neurological point of view, I
think.  Apparently the filmmakers had some money left, so they
actually shot the final scene in Singapore.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de