INDO-EUROPEAN MUSICAL IDIOM AND INDO-EUROPEAN ETHNOGENESIS

Abstract

This article for the first time proposes a methodological bridge between comparative and historical linguistics, classical philology (on the one hand) and ethnomusicology (on the other hand). Thus, it is possible to verify the results obtained independently in various fields of humanities of the 20th century. The present article compares rhythmical patterns of songs with explicit ritual use from different ethnic groups speaking Indo-European languages (Slavic, Baltic, Greek, Albanian, Iranian, and others). In these songs, there are two main types of stable rhythm patterns (0101/0100 and 011/010) which correlate with two main types of Indo-European poetic metrical patterns independently reconstructed by Indo-European linguistics. It suggests that folk songs preserved a range of possible Indo-European rhythmic patterns, even though languages have changed prosodic properties over time. The present study follows the track of previous studies, which showed partial parallels in Baltic, Slavic-Balcan, and Indo-Aryan song patterns, which loans could not explain. Further analysis of rhythmic patterns revealed their connections with prosodic and syntactic properties of Indo-European sentence. Relative rhythmic complexity of possible Indo-European musical idiom may be correlated to the rhythmic complexity of textiles that may be connected to some Indo-European speaking ethnic groups. The parallels outside the Indo-European cultural range show possible Uralic and Caucasian components of Indo-European musical idiom, which may indicate components of ethnogenesis of Indo-European ethnic groups. Thus ethnomusicology may be regarded as an independent source for studying prehistory, along with linguistics, archeology, and genetics. Though proposed in the 20th century by B. Bartok, V. Goshovsky, G. Luko, this program of ethnomusicological research has not yet been implemented.