(Fr. sifflet; Ger. Pfeife, Signalpfeife; It. fischietto; Sp. silbato).
A short, usually high-pitched flute (‘edge aerophone’), either without finger-holes or with no more than one (e.g. the cuckoo whistle; therefore, the Pennywhistle, which has six finger-holes, is a duct flute, but not a whistle within this definition). Whistles may be of wood, cane, metal, plastic, glass, stone, shell or any other material capable of containing a column or body of air. The distinction between flutes and whistles is difficult to establish (a small organ flue-pipe or a tube of a disjunct panpipe, such as is used in Lithuania and by the Venda people of southern Africa, could be defined in the same way); it is normally considered that flutes are used for music and whistles for signalling, leaving a grey area for those instruments which are used, either by the same or by different peoples, for both purposes (e.g.Swanee whistle). Whistles are blown in all the ways used on flutes: via a duct (see Duct flute), across the side (see Flute, §I) or the end, or into a notch (see Notched flute). Whistles may be multiple (e.g. the police whistle) or single, and either tubular or with a vessel as the body, in the latter case sometimes with a captive pellet to add a roll to the sound as with the football referee’s whistle. They have been known to most cultures from prehistoric times to the present day.
JEREMY MONTAGU