By Casimiro Curbelo, president of the Cabildo of La Gomera
This September 30 marked seventeen years since the Silbo Gomero was registered by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. That recognition in 2009 placed before the world one of the most unique expressions of our identity. But, above all, it made us assume a responsibility that is still fully valid: to preserve it, teach it, study it and transmit it.
El Silbo is not a museum piece nor a memory frozen in time. It is heritage because it is alive. Because for generations it allowed the Gomeros and Gomeras to overcome the distances imposed by ravines, slopes and mountains, turning our geography into the origin of an extraordinary form of communication. Where the territory made it difficult to meet, a language emerged capable of bringing people together.
Therefore, as we celebrate this anniversary, we must look to the past with gratitude, but also to the future with determination. None of what was achieved would have been possible without those who learned the Silbo from their elders and continued to use and transmit it. Whistlers like Lino Rodríguez and Isidro Ortiz symbolize that human chain of knowledge that allowed this legacy to reach us.
Today this chain continues in our educational centers, in the carrier community, in the Silbo Gomero Cultural Association, in our teachers and monitors, in the universities and, especially, in each child and each young person who learns to whistle. That is one of our biggest challenges: that the new generations do not perceive Silbo only as school content, but as a part of their identity and the history of the island.
We must also take advantage of the tools of our time. Scientific research, the conservation of sound and audiovisual archives, the digitization of testimonies and the creation of new educational resources can become great allies of tradition. Preserving does not mean immobilizing. It means having better instruments to guarantee the continuity of what we have received.
Cooperation is equally essential. Institutions, universities, associations, researchers and the carrier community must move in the same direction. And that collaboration can extend beyond the Canary Islands. The encounter with communities from other territories that preserve whistled languages, such as Kuşköy, in Türkiye, shows that an expression born to overcome distances can today build bridges between cultures.
That must be our commitment on this seventeenth anniversary: to ensure that the Whistle continues to be heard in our ravines, our towns, our schools and among our young people; that continues to be investigated, documented and known in the world without ever losing its authenticity.
The UNESCO declaration was not an arrival point. It was the beginning of a shared responsibility. Our generation will live up to that legacy if we are able to deliver it alive to those who come after.
Because as long as there is a people that teaches it, practices it and transmits it, the Silbo Gomero will continue to be, above any recognition, a heritage of all.
