Mongolian Music and Theatre Vocabulary: Terms for String Instruments

Abstract

Introduction. The article deals with semantics and etymologies of most widely used traditional Mongolian string instruments. Goals. The study aims to show some particular features of how Mongolian music and theater vocabulary would take shape through the example of designated lexical units. Materials and methods. The work employs the continuous sampling method to focus on Mongolian dictionaries, scholarly ethnographic and cultural publications. The extracted vocabulary data be further compared to entries contained in Mongolic, Turkic, Chinese and Manchu etymological dictionaries. Results. The article provides detailed insights into the Mongolian terms хуур, хуучир, ятга, товшуур, шударга, шанз, хийл, and term phrases that include the latter. In addition, etymologies of the words бийваа, тогшуур, бишгүүр, цоор / цуур are introduced to illustrate some defined provisions. So, the paper reveals that the terms хуур and ятга have Turkic cognates; товшуур, тогшууур, шударга are specifically Mongolian words; хуучир, шанз, бийваа are musical terms of Chinese origin. Particular attention is paid to clarifying the etymology of the Mongolian term хийл: the lexeme is most likely derived from the Chagatai name of a bowed string instrument ― ïqlïq, and is thus cognate to the Tuvan name of the instrument ― игил. Another observation is that the word хуур not only denotes a certain traditional Mongolian bowed instrument but in some phrases is also used either as a quasi-classifier to indicate the word belongs to the corresponding class of musical instruments, or as a term for ‘jaw harp’.