Meyer J. (2008). Acoustic Strategy and Typology of Whistled Languages; Phonetic Comparison and Perceptual Cues of Whistled Vowels. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1). Cambridge University Press, 64-90.(pdf) (journal)

Meyer, J., Casimiro, N. J. (2008). Exploiting the didactic role of whistled speech : interactions between phonetic research and education in Gomero Spanish and Mazatec, Language Design. Journal of Theorical and Experimental Linguistics, Special Issue 2 , 57-64. .(pdf)

Meyer, J. (2007). Acoustic features and perceptive cues of songs and dialogues in whistled speech: convergences with sung speech. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Musical Acoustics 2007. Barcelona. (pdf)

Meyer J. (2005). Typology and intelligibility of whistled languages: linguistic and bioacoustic approach. Ph.D thesis, Univ Lyon2: Cyberthese publication. (pdf, in French))

Meyer J. (2005). Description Typologique et intelligibilité des langues sifflées: approches linguistique et bioacoustique, Thèse de doctorat, Université Lyon2 (pdf en francais)

English abstract:
Whistled languages, which are linked to particular biotopes, represent a little studied valuable oral patrimony. They are analysed here in their diversity thanks to a 14 months fieldwork and collaborations done in ten linguistic communities during more than one year. Whistled speech relies on phonetic elements of the original spoken voice in order to communicate in the distance or in the ambient noise. It enables high intelligibility of sentences in difficult conditions of listening. A typological description is developed here thanks to the collected data. The linguistic types depend on the phonology of the concerned languages. A comparative study of the spoken voice, the shouted voice and the whistled speech shows that whistling enables to prolong the acoustic strategy of overcoming noise as the distance of communication increases. It therefore enables the human speech to naturally develop properties, which elaborate a true system of telecommunication. The transformation at play in whistled speech is a practice that requires complementary learning but it is based on natural perceptive capacities. For example the results of a perception test show that French persons knowing nothing of whistled spanish vowels can intuitively identify them. In order to analyse these different aspects, the proposed methodology uses the tools of phonetics, phonology, bioacoustics, sociolinguistics, psychoacoustics and psycholinguistics.