Throat singing

[Benjamin Barrett]

Snipping from your e-mail, the definition says, ""traditional esp. in Mongolia, Tibet, and adjacent parts of central Asia."

So, the point isn't "adjacent to Mongolia and Tibet" but "especially in Mongolia, adjacent to Mongolia, in Tibet and adjacent to Tibet."

Looking at Kazakhstan, I see it is 38 miles from Mongolia, and Uzbekistan is adjacent to that. So I can see your point that there needs to be an update, though it does not seem to be too bad, for Altaic throat singing. Tibet throat singing is listed under "overtone singing" in Wikipedia; is it a different type of singing?

Inuit, of course, as well as Ainu need to be covered.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Aug 14, 2011, at 7:59 PM, victor steinbok wrote:

> 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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