Throat singing

[victor steinbok]

It's quite obvious that the Altaic-wiki includes neither Inuit nor Tibetan
overtone chant/singing--an exclusion that may well be acceptable for a site
dedicated to Altaic issues, but not for overtone singing in general. Both
Tibetan and Inuit distributions are significant and the OED entry was for
"overtone singing", not "throat singing". That's the incomplete part. On the
other hand, I find it somewhat difficult to see something that is adjacent
to Mongolia and Tibet, since they are not exactly next to each other.
Mongolia is north of Central China and Tibet is southwest of China
(mostly--parts of former Tibet region are absorbed in southern Chinese
provinces). The only region that's adjacent to both is Xinjiang (on opposite
ends) and if Uighurs don't practice overtone singing, then the OED
definition is just wrong, not merely incomplete or questionable (although
there are more than just Uighurs in Xinjiang--Kazakhs dominate the northern
region). The rest of the overtone-singing region may be vaguely adjacent to
Mongolia (in a somewhat odd sort of way--minus the Inuit), but certainly not
to Tibet.

VS-)

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 10:19 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

>
> Looking at the countries where the eight ethnicities who practice throat
> singing live (according to the Altaic wiki, we have:
>
> Tuvan, Mongolian, Kalmyk peoples: Russia, Mongolia, China
> Khakas people: Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Kemerovo Oblast, Tuva Republic
> Altay people: Russia, mostly in the Altai Republic and Altai Krai
> Buryat people: Buryatia Russia with smaller groups in Mongolia and China
> Kazakh people: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, China, Russia, Mongolia
> Nanai people: Russia, China
>
> I don't know enough of the geography to say with much confidence, but their
> geographic description sounds reasonable to me.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA

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