the small town of kuşköy , which is tucked into an isolated valley on the rainy , mountainous black sea coast of turkey , looks much like the other villages in the region .
although neuroscientists have long understood that brain functions do not divide cleanly between the left and right hemispheres , the left hemisphere appears to play a consistently dominant role in our understanding of language — regardless of whether the language is tonal or atonal , spoken or written , signed with the hands or clicked with the tongue .
herodotus described communities in ethiopia whose residents “ spoke like music ?
for güntürkün , whistled turkish was not only a fascinating cultural oddity but also an exciting natural experiment .
in kuşköy ’s version , for example , adapts standard turkish syllables into piercing tones that can be heard from more than half a mile away .
over the past half - century , linguists and reporters curious about what locals call ku__ş dili , or “ bird language , ” have occasionally struggled up the footpaths and dirt roads that lead to kuşköy .
so its thousand or so residents were not all that surprised when , a few years ago , a turkish - born german biopsychologist named onur güntürkün showed up and asked them to participate in a study .
when he gave them spoken turkish , the participants understood both syllables in roughly equal measure , suggesting that the left hemisphere was processing the sound .
, ” becomes , in bird language , six separate whistles made with the tongue , teeth , and fingers .