On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whistling language

Re:On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whis... by jwilk on Thursday February 08, 2018 @06:47AM (#16331550)

The article says:

> Sfyria, […] is not technically a language; linguists refer to it as a speech registrar, like shouting or whispering.

I've never heard the term registrar (in the linguistic sense), and Google doesn't find anything relevant either, so I wonder if this is the correct one.

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Re:On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whis... by zimpenfish on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:12AM (#16331630)

I think they meant "register" which is a valid linguistic term applied to this kind of thing.

eg. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XzzABgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=... specifically calls whistled speech a speech register.

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Re:On a small Greek island, practitioners of an ancient whis... by dorchadas on Thursday February 08, 2018 @12:42PM (#16333947)

Yep. Register is basically a specific version of a language used on certain cases. Like English has a formal register you'd use with your boss and in an academic paper. But you ain't gonna be using it often with friends, y'know?

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