Julien MEYER
Julien MEYER
Responsabilité(s)
Membre de Ecolo-GIPSA
Personnel CNRS Permanent
Site Ampère
Bureau : B331
Téléphone : 04 76 82 71 07
Département Parole et Cognition
PCMD
Biographie
Researcher in Language Sciences at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, section 36) email: julien.meyer – at – cnrs.fr
Phonetician, fieldwork linguist developing interdisciplinary research with bioacoustics, cognitive sciences and anthropology
I work on language description, as well as on speech and language adaptation to different phonotypes (shouting, whistling, drumming) and language adaptation to music (musical surrogates) in different languages of the world (Amazon, Africa, Europe).
CV and Text publications
See lists on researchgate or HAL open science
HAL
BOOK on Whistled Languages: A Worldwide Inquiry on Human Whistled Speech | Springer (ask me for a free version)
VIDEO PUBLICATIONS: https://vimeo.com/user83181333
AUDIO PUBLICATIONS: https://soundcloud.com/user-28976943
Highlight to some recent news and publications:
More Than 80 Cultures Still Speak in Whistles | Science| Smithsonian Magazine (including video examples)
Les étonnants tambours parleurs des Bora d’Amazonie – Sciences et Avenir
If you listen closely, the drumbeats of Amazonian tribes sound like human speech | Science | AAAS
Científicos piden proteger el lenguaje silbado de Canarias (pellagofio.es)
O som de 10 línguas indígenas brasileiras em perigo de extinção – BBC News Brasil (including video examples)
Les secrets des langues sifflées (lemonde.fr)
La parole sifflée – Libération (liberation.fr)
Radio broadcasts Introducing whistled speech (French):
La langue sifflée des alpages (radiofrance.fr)
Parlez-vous les langues sifflées ? | CNRS Le journal (radio France Inter)
A short film produced with Damien Davy (financed by Labex CEBA and MITI CNRS):
Fieldwork of restitution of our work in the Amazonian Oyapock river (Wayãpi people) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7dt4PpSBdg&t=1s (teaser 2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY-ox43xzMM&t=1s (full video 2023);
Publications / Travaux
65 documents
Articles dans une revue
- Julien Meyer. Mélodies parlantes d’Amazonie et d’Afrique: la voix substituée. Terrain : anthropologie et sciences humaines [Anciennement : Carnets du patrimoine ethnologique ; Revue d’ethnologie de l’Europe], 2026, Illusions vocales (84), pp.190-207. ⟨10.4000/16qpb⟩. ⟨hal-05536011⟩
- Anaïs Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier. Benefits of musical experience on whistled consonant categorization: analyzing the cognitive transfer processes. Speech Communication, 2025, 174 (October), pp.103302. ⟨10.1016/j.specom.2025.103302⟩. ⟨hal-05482789⟩
- Anaïs Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier. Musical Experience and Speech Processing: The Case of Whistled Words. Cognitive Science, 2024, 48 (12), pp.e70032. ⟨10.1111/cogs.70032⟩. ⟨hal-04869029⟩
- Anaïs Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier. The effect of musical expertise on whistled vowel identification. Speech Communication, 2024, 159 (April), pp.103058. ⟨10.1016/j.specom.2024.103058⟩. ⟨hal-04715616⟩
- Anais Tran Ngoc, Fanny Meunier, Julien Meyer. Testing perceptual flexibility in speech through the categorization of whistled Spanish consonants by French speakers. JASA Express Letters, 2022, 2 (9), pp.095201. ⟨10.1121/10.0013900⟩. ⟨hal-03772403⟩
- Julien Meyer. Environmental and Linguistic Typology of Whistled Languages. Annual Review of Linguistics, 2021, 7 (1), pp.493-510. ⟨10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030444⟩. ⟨hal-03058925⟩
- Julien Meyer, Denny Moore. A Flute, Musical Bows and Bamboo Clarinets that « Speak » in the Amazon Rainforest; Speech and Music in the Gavião Language of Rondônia. Frontiers in Psychology, 2021, 12, pp.674289. ⟨10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674289⟩. ⟨hal-03440099⟩
- Julien Meyer, Marcelo Magnasco, Diana Reiss. The Relevance of Human Whistled Languages for the Analysis and Decoding of Dolphin Communication. Frontiers in Psychology, 2021, 12, pp.689501. ⟨10.3389/fpsyg.2021.689501⟩. ⟨hal-03379989⟩
- Julien Meyer. Les bergers et la parole sifflée. Pastum, 2018, 110. ⟨hal-01962827⟩
- Frank Seifart, Julien Meyer, Sven Grawunder, Laure Dentel. Reducing language to rhythm: Amazonian Bora drummed language exploits speech rhythm for long-distance communication. Royal Society Open Science, 2018, 5 (4), pp.170354. ⟨10.1098/rsos.170354⟩. ⟨hal-01968842⟩
- Julien Meyer, David Reyes Diaz. Geolingüistica de los lenguajes silbados del mundo, con un enfoque en el español silbado. Géolinguistique, 2018, 17, pp.99-124. ⟨10.4000/geolinguistique.373⟩. ⟨hal-01677987⟩
- William J. Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M. Newsome, Mauro Galetti, Mohammed Alamgir, et al.. World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. Bioscience, 2017, 67 (12), pp.1026 – 1028. ⟨10.1093/biosci/bix125⟩. ⟨hal-01906049⟩
- Julien Meyer, Laure Dentel, Fanny Meunier. Categorization of natural whistled vowels by naïve listeners of different language background. Frontiers in Psychology, 2017, 8, ⟨10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00025⟩. ⟨hal-01423532⟩
- Julien Meyer. “Whistled Languages” Reveal How the Brain Processes Information. Scientific American, 2016. ⟨hal-01423463⟩
- Julien Meyer, Laure Dentel, Meunier Fanny. Speech Recognition in Natural Background Noise . PLoS ONE, 2013, 8, pp.Issue : 11 Article number : e79279. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0079279⟩. ⟨hal-01104804⟩
- Julien Meyer, Laure Dentel, Fanny Meunier. Speech Recognition in Natural Background Noise. PLoS ONE, 2013, ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0079279⟩. ⟨hal-01247754⟩
- Julien Meyer, Juan N. Casimiro. Exploiting the didactic aspect of whistled speech in Gomero Spanish and Mazatec: interactions between phonetic research and education. Language Design – Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics, 2008, Special Issue 2, pp.57-64. ⟨halshs-00388173⟩
Communications dans un congrès
- Julien Meyer, Denny Moore. Comment les Gavião du Rondônia (Brésil) imitent la parole grâce à trois instruments demusique traditionnels d’Amazonie. LLcD 2024 – Langues & Langage à la croisée des Disciplines 1ère Rencontre annuelle LLcD, CNRS – Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Sep 2024, Paris, France. pp.11-12. ⟨hal-04875150⟩
- Fanny Meunier, Anaïs Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer. Le traitement de la parole sifflée par des auditeurs non entrainés. LLcD 2024 – Langues & Langage à la croisée des Disciplines 1ère Rencontre annuelle LLcD, CNRS, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Sep 2024, Paris, France. pp.302-303. ⟨hal-04875174⟩
- Julien Meyer, Adèle Denis, Laure Dentel. Progressive speech type adaptation to distance: frequencies of /a/ as a case study. ISSP 2024 – 13th International Seminar on Speech Production, May 2024, Autrans, France. pp.105-108. ⟨hal-04875134⟩
- Julien Meyer. How traditional extreme transformations of speech may help decoding animal communications. Animals in Translation: Imagining Criteria and Frameworks for Decoding Communication in Other Species, Santa Fe Institute; Interspecies Internet, Apr 2024, Santa Fe (New Mexico), United States. pp.37-38. ⟨hal-04742651⟩
- Julien Meyer, Vincent Rolland, Tini Socas, David Díaz. A sentence comprehension test with whistled Spanish experts. ExLing 2023 – 14th International Conference of Experimental Linguistics, University of Athens, Oct 2023, Athens, Greece. pp.65-68, ⟨10.36505/ExLing-2023/14/0015/000609⟩. ⟨hal-04715619⟩
- Anais Tran Ngoc, Fanny Meunier, Julien Meyer. The Effect of Whistled Vowels on Whistled Word Categorization for Naive Listeners. Interspeech 2023 – 24th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, ISCA, Aug 2023, Dublin, Ireland. pp.3063-3067, ⟨10.21437/interspeech.2023-1967⟩. ⟨hal-04373273⟩
- Julien Meyer. L’adaptation des langues humaines aux contraintes acoustiques du territoire dans le cas des modalités de parole à distance. Conférence Annuelle du Centre d’Etudes Francoprovençales. Grammaires de l’espace et relations au territoire, Armand, F., Bert, M., Dunoyer, Ch. & Kopecka, A., Nov 2022, Saint Nicolas, Italie. ⟨hal-04389268v3⟩
- Anais Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier. Bénéfices de la pratique musicale sur la catégorisation de la parole sifflée : analyse des processus de transferts. JEP 2022 – 34e Journées d’Études sur la Parole, Jun 2022, Noirmoutier, France. pp.405-413, ⟨10.21437/jep.2022-43⟩. ⟨hal-03931592⟩
- Laure Dentel, Julien Meyer. How Rhythm and Timbre Encode Mooré Language in Bendré Drummed Speech. Interspeech 2020 – 21st Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Oct 2020, Shanghai (Virtual Conf), China. pp.1898-1902, ⟨10.21437/Interspeech.2020-2532⟩. ⟨hal-03058857⟩
- Anaïs Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier. Whistled Vowel Identification by French Listeners. Interspeech 2020 – 21st Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Oct 2020, Shanghai (Virtual Conf), China. pp.1605-1609, ⟨10.21437/Interspeech.2020-2697⟩. ⟨hal-03058850⟩
- Anaïs Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier. Categorization of Whistled Consonants by French Speakers. Interspeech 2020 – 21st Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Oct 2020, Shanghai (Virtual Conf), China. pp.1600-1604, ⟨10.21437/Interspeech.2020-2683⟩. ⟨hal-03058856⟩
- Julien Meyer, Laure Dentel, Silvain Gerber, Rachid Ridouane. A Perceptual Study of CV Syllables in both Spoken and Whistled Speech: a Tashlhiyt Berber Perspective. Interspeech 2019 – 20th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Sep 2019, Graz, Austria. ⟨10.21437/Interspeech.2019-2251⟩. ⟨hal-02371794⟩
- Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier, Laure Dentel, Noelia Do Carmo Blanco, Frédéric Sèbe. Loud and Shouted Speech Perception at Variable Distances in a Forest. Interspeech 2018 – 19th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Sep 2018, Hyperabad, India. pp.2285-2289, ⟨10.21437/interspeech.2018-2089⟩. ⟨hal-01961079⟩
- Rachid Ridouane, Giuseppina Turco, Julien Meyer. Length Contrast and Covarying Features: Whistled Speech as a Case Study. Interspeech 2018 – 19th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Sep 2018, Hyperabad, India. pp.1843-1847, ⟨10.21437/interspeech.2018-1060⟩. ⟨hal-01960866⟩
- Noelia Do Carmo Blanco, Julien Meyer, Michel Hoen, Fanny Meunier. Phoneme Resistance and Phoneme Confusion in Noise: Impact of Dyslexia. Interspeech 2018 – 19th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Sep 2018, Hyperabad, India. pp.2290-2294, ⟨10.21437/interspeech.2018-1271⟩. ⟨hal-01961066⟩
- Julien Meyer. Perception and learning of whistled speech, basis and first steps. Institut Neuroscience Cognition Day, Nov 2016, Paris, France. ⟨hal-01423468⟩
- Julien Meyer, Laure Dentel, Fanny Meunier. Categorization of natural Spanish whistled vowels by naïve Spanish listeners. Interspeech 2016 – 17th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Sep 2016, San Francisco, United States. ⟨hal-01423374⟩
- Rachid Ridouane, Julien Meyer. How is lexical gemination transposed in Tashlhiyt whistled speech?. LabPhon 2016 – 15th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon15), Jul 2016, Ithaca, New York, United States. ⟨hal-01423385⟩
- Julien Meyer, Laure Dentel, Polge Julie, Duchamp Laure, Fanny Meunier. Catégorisation de voyelles sifflées par des locuteurs naïfs issus de trois langues (espagnol, français, chinois standard). RFP 2016 – 14èmes rencontres du Réseau Français de Phonologie, Jun 2016, Nice, France. ⟨hal-01423478⟩
- Julien Meyer, Bernard Gautheron, Rachid Ridouane. Whistled Moroccan Tamazight: phonetics and phonology. 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Aug 2015, Glasgow, France. ⟨halshs-01287709⟩
- Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier, Laure Dentel. Speech Recognition Experiment in ‘Natural Quiet’ Background Noise. International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Aug 2015, Glasgow, United Kingdom. ⟨hal-01860821⟩
- Julien Meyer, Rachid Ridouane. Whistled Moroccan Tamazight at the interface between phonetics and phonology . Approaches to Phonology and Phonetics (Apap 2015), Jun 2015, Lublin, Poland. ⟨halshs-01411299⟩
- Léo Varnet, Julien Meyer, Michel Hoen, Fanny Meunier. Phoneme resistance during speech-in-speech comprehension. 13th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Sep 2012, Portland, Oregon, United States. ⟨hal-00932285⟩
- Julien Meyer, Laure Dentel, Fanny Meunier. Intelligibilité de la parole à plusieurs distances dans un bruit naturel. 10ème Congrès Français d’Acoustique, Apr 2010, Lyon, France. ⟨hal-00550902⟩
- Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier, Laure Dentel. Identification of Natural Whistled Vowels by Non-Whistlers. Interspeech 2007, Aug 2007, Belgium. pp.1593-1596. ⟨hal-00184810⟩
- Julien Meyer. WHISTLED TURKISH: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF VOWEL DISTRIBUTION AND CONSONANT MODULATIONS. XVI International Conference of Phonetic Sciences, 2007, Saarbrücken, Germany. pp.284-288. ⟨halshs-00167130⟩
- Julien Meyer. ACOUSTIC FEATURES AND PERCEPTIVE CUES OF SONGS AND DIALOGUES IN WHISTLED SPEECH: CONVERGENCES WITH SUNG SPEECH. International Symposium on Musical Acoustics 2007, 2007, Barcelona, Spain. pp.32. ⟨hal-00184809⟩
Chapitres d’ouvrage
- Julien Meyer, David Díaz Reyes, Andre Batchelder-Schwab, Bernard Gautheron. Whistled Languages and Whistled Speech. Hilary Nesi (eds.); Petar Milin (eds.). International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Third Edition, 14, Elsevier, 2026, 978-0-443-22286-3. ⟨10.1016/B978-0-323-95504-1.00545-7⟩. ⟨hal-04936792⟩
- Julien Meyer, Damien Davy. Communications acoustiques humaines adaptées au biome amazonien : imitations animales et parole sifflée des Wayãpi. Bondil F.; Danglades M.; Davy D. Sociétés et humanités en Guyane : traces, mémoires, enjeux et dynamiques, ORPHIES, pp.370-390, 2026, 9782375206089. ⟨hal-04389248v3⟩
- Julien Meyer, Victor Manfredi. Auxiliary speech by vocal tract modulation and musical surrogacy. Sammler, D. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Language and Music, Oxford University Press, 2025, 9780192894700. ⟨10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192894700.013.0021⟩. ⟨hal-04389746v4⟩
- Alejandro López-García, María Alfaro-Contreras, Julien Meyer, Jose J. Valero-Mas. Whistler Identification in Whistled Spanish (Silbo): A Case Study. Speech and Computer. SPECOM 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 16188, Springer, 2025, 978-3-032-07959-6. ⟨hal-05482777⟩
- Julien Meyer, Damien Davy, Dennis Albert Moore, Ana Vilacy Galucio. Imitações acústicas de animais na Amazônia: perspectiva pluridisciplinar. Carneiro da Cunha M.; Magalhães S.; Adams C. Povos Tradicionais e Biodiversidade. Diagnóstico das contribuições de Povos Indígenas, quilombolas ecomunidades tradicionais à biodiversidade do Brasil e Políticas Públicas que os afetam., 8, Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência, pp.99-100, 2021, Conhecimentos associados à biodiversidade, ISBN 978-65-89883-07-4. ⟨hal-03088091⟩
- Julien Meyer. Linguas assoviadas. Carneiro da Cunha M.; Magalhães S.; Adams C. Povos Tradicionais e Biodiversidade. Diagnóstico das contribuições de Povos Indígenas, quilombolas ecomunidades tradicionais à biodiversidade do Brasil e Políticas Públicas que os afetam., 8, Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência, pp.100, 2021, Conhecimentos associados à biodiversidade, ISBN 978-65-89883-07-4. ⟨hal-03380154⟩
- Julien Meyer. Coding human languages for long range communication in natural ecological environments: shouting, whistling and drumming. Coding strategies in Vertebrate Acoustic Communication. Ed. Mathevon N. et Aubin T. Springer, 2020, ISBN 978-3-030-39199-7. ⟨10.1007/978-3-030-39200-0_4⟩. ⟨hal-01677966⟩
- Julien Meyer. Siffler avec les Aigles, imitations sonores chez les chasseurs Gavião en Amazonie. In Anne de Malleray (ed.) Billebaude, Mondes Sonores 14, Glénat, Paris, France, p. 34-39., 2019. ⟨hal-03165549⟩
- Julien Meyer. Revitalization of Whistled Languages . L. Hinton, L. Huss and G. Roche Routledge Handbook on Language Revitalization, Taylor & Francis/Routledge, 2018. ⟨hal-01423530⟩
Autres publications
- Julien Meyer, Damien Davy. Imitations animales et parole sifflée des Wayãpi : des communications acoustiques adaptées au milieu amazonien. 2025, pp.16-21 n°20. ⟨hal-05641143⟩
- Maximiano Trapero, Antonio Tejera Gaspar, María Jesús Rodríguez Medina, Maria Antonia Perera Betancort, Julien Meyer, et al.. Carta de miembros de la comunidad científica con el propósito de garantizar la protección, la continuidad y la investigación de las prácticas del lenguaje silbado en Canarias. 2023. ⟨hal-04386165⟩
- Pichel Jose, Julien Meyer. El significado del silbo de La Gomera y otros 69 silbidos más. 2016. ⟨hal-01423501⟩
- Julien Meyer. L’adaptation de la parole à la distance. 2016. ⟨hal-01423471⟩
- Julien Meyer. Documentação e pesquisa sobre a fala assoviada e os Turé com os Gavião de Rondônia. 2016. ⟨hal-01423518⟩
- Julien Meyer. Lenguajes silbados del mundo (Invited Speaker). 2016. ⟨hal-01423509⟩
- Julien Meyer. L’exploration des langues sifflées. 2016. ⟨hal-01423506⟩
Pré-publications, Documents de travail
- Anaïs Tran Ngoc, Julien Meyer, Fanny Meunier. Whistled Phoneme Categorization: the Effect of Vowel Space Range. 2023. ⟨hal-04293388v3⟩
- Julien Meyer. Acoustic strategy, phonetic comparison and perceptive cues of whistled languages. 2007. ⟨halshs-00133192⟩
Rapports
- Julien Meyer. Informe para la declaración del Silbo Herreño como Bien de Interés Cultural Inmaterial. CNRS et Université Grenoble Alpes, sur demande du Gouvernement de El Hierro (Cabildo Insular de EL Hierro). 2025. ⟨hal-05544372⟩
Thèses
- Julien Meyer. Description typologique et intelligibilité des langues sifflées, approche linguistique et bioacoustique. Sciences de l’Homme et Société. Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2005. Français. ⟨NNT : ⟩. ⟨tel-05248970⟩
Cartes
- Julien Meyer, Andre Batchelder-Schwab. World Map of Attested Whistled Languages (in published studies or field recordings). France. 2025. ⟨hal-04912578v4⟩
Documents récupérés de l’archive ouverte HAL 
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