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Speech through music: the Sino-Tibetan gourd reed-organ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

D. Bradley
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Abstract

There is evidence that a particular musical instrument was used by various Sino-Tibetan groups to convey speech, both for courting and for religious purposes. The Proto-Sino-Tibetan etymon for this gourd reed-organ is reconstructible as *s-jan. Its use as a speech surrogate is widely reported, from the earliest sources to the present. It is still used thus by many Tibeto-Burman groups.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , October 1979 , pp. 535 - 540
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1979

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