Talk:Duduk/Archive 1

Latest comment: 17 years ago by Eijkhout in topic Confusing: Balkan vs Armenian.
Archive 1 Archive 2

POV?

I've always believed the duduk(i) to be an Armenian instrument, not Georgian: [1]. I've edited it to suggest Caucasusian origin, but still mainly Armenian (i.e. the Armenian spelling). A cursory google search seems to confirm my actions, but I'd like to know what others think. Dmn 13:19, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think a google search can confirm this type of thing. Your case would be strengthened, or perhaps indisputable, with a scholarly, authoritative source backing it up.--Urthogie 16:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. There's a similar dispute over the zurna. Historically there's been such cultural communication in the Balkans and Asia Minor that it's impossible to disentangle real geographical origins from an instrument's association with national identities. Find scholarly references - not personal websites - and go by what they say (if there's a dispute or conflicting answers, mentioning both sides satisfies WP:NPOV). A Google on duduk musicology picks up a few references. Tearlach 16:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

--

I think there are two different, separate issues:

  • The origin thing: until some ethnologist documents irrefutable evidence about the true country of origin, we'll probably have to NPOV with providing both sides of the story (I've planted a stub history section, with two hidden comments to prevent plausible denial to ethnic warriors).
  • The naming thing: this one is much easier, this is an English-speaking encyclopedia, and it follows the naming conventions in use in the English language, even when they differ from the original, local names (there are plenty of rules about this, and plenty of bans and arbitrations against ethnic warriors moving English spellings to "original, local" spellings.

So, the prevalent English spelling seems to be "duduk" (often used generically, regardlessly of the actual country). Followed by "doudouk", for instance on the website of the Armenian player Armen Stepanyan [2]. In the liner notes to Peter Gabriel's Passion, we find two precise spellings, "Doudouk" for Armenians and "Duduk" for Kurds (Turkey):

1. THE FEELING BEGINS
Armenian Doudouk: Vatche Housepian
*1 The Doudouk is playing an Armenian melody
(...)
4. LAZARUS RAISED
Kurdish Duduk and Tenbur: Players unknown
(...)
*1 Armenian Doudouks recorded for Ocora Records
*2 Kurdish Duduks are from Unesco Collection

(One can also note that we have English-speaking commercial websites at duduk.com and duduk.co.uk -- no duduki.)

What I mean is, even if it's eventually proven that it originated in the Georgian duduki, the prevalent word adopted by anglophones is duduk, and thus the main article should use it too.

-- 62.147.113.97 10:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Google Results:

  • Armenian + duduk: 188,000
  • Georgian + duduk: 711
  • Turkish + duduk: 36,100 Hakob 23:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

--

Other Google results:
  • about 553 for { "two and two makes four" } [3]
  • about 19,500 for { "two and two makes five" } [4]
Therefore... hey, waitaminnit! Google isn't an encyclopedia and can't provide this sort of information, the web has more cruft than information, and truth isn't decided by vote or mob rule. Plus, the NPOV is also to report factually on the various existing claims, not to supress them (even if they're false).
-- 62.147.38.179 13:06, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The duduk is Armenian

Prove it. Every website, book or encyclopedia I've checked has related the duduk to Armenia or Armenians. Georgians claim that they exported it to other cultures? I'd like to see some examples. Hakob 06:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Here’s an example for you. The following is the article from Great Soviet Encyclopedia about duduk.
Дудук, дудуки (от тур. düdük), духовой музыкальный инструмент: небольшая (около 300 мм) трубка с 9 игровыми отверстиями и двойной тростью. Обычно играют на двух Д. — один исполнитель ведёт мелодию, а другой извлекает непрерывный звук (органный пункт). Распространён у народов Кавказа. [5]
It says that the name of duduk is Turkish and that the instrument is popular with people of the Caucasus. No specific mention of Armenians. It is ridiculous to claim that a certain musical instrument belongs exclusively to a certain ethnicity, while that instrument is widespread all over the region. Grandmaster 07:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Safe to say that the duduk is indigineous to the region, without referring to nationalities. In the end, Armenians have claimed it as their own and identify strongly with the instrument. This is part of the histroy of the instrument, though, not essential to what the instrument is in-itself. Madoherty 07:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Please remember that Armenia is a country many thousand years old and that the borders of the so-called Armenia have changed over a million times since the duduk was "invented". Maybe the Armenians of the time when duduk was invented moved in the meantime to the place where Georgia is now, or the borders of Georgia moved to where Ancient-Armenia is now. I think something like that is the root of the arguments above. Satúrnus 23:04, 19 June 2006 (GMT)

Etymology

What's the etymology of the word doodook? I find it strange that an ancient instrument obviously native to the region would end up with a foreign name. How do we know the root of the word is Turkic?--Eupator 14:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Ask editors of Great Soviet Encyclopedia, they were best soviet scientists. Editor in chief was Shaumyan, the son of Bolshevik Shaumyan. Grandmaster 16:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
The fact that a Turkic speaker such as yourself cannot propose even an amateur theory raises further doubts in my mind. I don't trust any communist sources whatsoever and consider them all unreliable, I would cite a Soviet source when all else fails and no alternative can be found. I don't think a linguistic question about such a popular instrument is one of them. Lets wait and see if someone knowledgeable can offer a tangible explanation.--Eupator 16:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
It is strange that you are asking about etymology of this word. It is so obvious. It derived of the sound of du-du that this instrument produces, same as Russian dudka. In fact, duduk in Turkish means not only the instrument, but also any kind of a whistle. As for Soviet encyclopedia, it may be unreliable when it comes to anything related to communist ideology or capitalism, but it is very reliable when it comes to ancient history, geography, physics, medicine, etc. It was written by the best Russian scientists, and Russian scientists have very good reputation. To this day GSE is the most popular encyclopedia in Russia and many CIS countries. Grandmaster 18:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I feel there's a confusion there between two very different issues (same problem as with the previous "POV" section above):
  1. The origin of the many (very similar) words used in the Causasus. This one seems as shrouded in mystery (and ethnic wars) as the culture of origin of the duduk, and shouldn't be asserted w/o strong and convergent sources.
  2. The origin of the word used in the Western world and Western alphabet, which is almost always "duduk" in the generical sense. This one does seem to have passed to the West via the Turkish word (independently of whichever culture made the original flute and coined the original word).
I have edited/NPOV the lead to reflect this, moving the etymo point to the end of the second para, with a hidden comment fully explaining we're not dealing the etymology of the many Causasus names. Besides, I think it makes more sense to mention the origin of the English word after we've listed all those Caucasus names, rather than throwing it at the reader in the first sentence, where only the pronunciation is relevant.
-- 62.147.112.140 17:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
P.S. A quick googling gave this interesting piece of divergent opinion:
" Jivan Gasparian, the 70 year-old Armenian musician world famous for his playing and composition on the duduk [...] prefers to call the duduk by its Armenian name, "dziranapogh" (apricot pipe), explaining that the word "duduk" has been used in reference to the instrument for no more than a century, when it was borrowed from the Russian word "dudka" - another kind of folk pipe instrument. " – from an article in "Armenian Dispara", November 30, 2004 [6]
I'm going to tweak the lead a bit again to namecheck the variants ("doudouk or dziranapogh", "duduka or dudka") in the Causasus names, and mention the two etymology claims (for the Western word) with the new source.
I think it's the NPOV thing to do, because none of the two sources we have is really that well documented; I'm sure Jivan Gasparian is sincere and he may very well be right, but it doesn't tell us his primary sources, if he's quoting from reliable sources, or unreliable ones. Food for more searches...
-- 62.147.112.140 18:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Russian dudka is a different instrument, and Gasparian is not an academic source. The name of those two different instruments derived of the similar root – the sound that the instrument produces, but it is just a coincidence. I’m not sure that the latest edit is correct. Even Russians don’t claim that duduk is Russian word. And it is called duduk not only in English, but many other languages, including Armenian. Grandmaster 18:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I understand what you mean, but please note that I think I've been careful in the NPOVing: the lead does NOT say that the word is Russian. The lead simply REPORTS on the existence two relevant facts: the fact that we have Gasparian saying the word was derived from Russian "dudka", and the fact that we have the GSE saying the word was derived from Turkey. Until we can have strong and accepted academic research providing a single answer, the best we can give the reader is to let him know about those two relevant claims, with their sources – that's the key of reporting that "The English word has been asserted as derived from", etc.
-- 62.147.112.140 18:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Agree, but you cannot equate the encyclopedia and Gasparian, the latter is a musician, not scientist. Grandmaster 19:12, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Interesting find. Unless I see different explanation i'm going to stick to the idea that the name doudouk/doodook is derived from the Russian dudka.--Eupator 20:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Of course. I kind of can’t imagine you sticking to the idea of Turkish roots of the name, even if it is supported by a Russian encyclopedia. Grandmaster 04:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Alas, in your head everything in the region is turkic. I do recognize turkic words when the etymology is clear and concise (ie: atabek) it certainly isn't in this case. The Encyclopedia is NOT Russian, Soviet is not Russian now, never was and never will be. It doesn't even provide a reference or how they arrived at that conclusion, but it's Soviet so what can one expect... --Eupator 13:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Can't say I disagree on that one. I my self am from USSR and know for one thing that they have a lot of political agendas in this kind of cultural relevant issues. Especial with cultural finds. Russian science concerning space technology, math, biology etc... are (ware) pretty high standard. But not concerning cultural finds. As long as I know there has always been cultural disagreement and high nationalistic focus in the USSR. Just take a look at the passports of the old USSR. Even though everyone was a citizen of the soviet union, and even if you live in lets say Moscow, and your parents ware lets say Georgian, your nationality would be referred not as Russian, but as Georgian. Not that this have much to do with duduk :), it just illustrates the concern and focus on nationality within the old Soviet-Union. So by this I am saying that although it might seem fairly independent info, it is actually not (just look at this discussion and you probably understand, because if it was not such a big deal there wouldn't be such a fuzz right?). Anyways can’t say I trust formal soviet encyclopedia on such issues as culture because they do have other agendas often.

Ney?

somebody had written it's referred as NEY in Turkey bot Ney has no smiliarity with Duduk at all. I think it must be MEY which is less-known.

I agre with this, there is no apparent relationship between the Ney and the duduk, though the mey is quite similar. Madoherty 07:46, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

A-Duduk different?

Hallo there, recently I took some interest in this marvelous instrument. So I searched for it on wikipedia. I see there is some disagreement and lacking of reliable entries on this instrument. When I looked for “duduk” at msn-Encarta I found no article, instead there ware some links to duduk related sites. On one of these sites I found some history on duduk. I don’t know how reliable this is but I see they make a clear distinction (throughout the article) between the Armenian duduk and other similar instruments across the Caucasus and other regions. So maybe there should be a distinction made between these (apparently regional different) instruments. Here beneath I quote some of the info I found on that page.

“ The roots of the duduk in Armenia date back to the times of the Armenian king Tigran the Great (95-55BC.). One ancestor of duduk is an ancient flute (aulos) made from reed. This type of reed duduk may be seen in Armenian manuscripts from Middle Ages.

Many instruments from the regions around Armenia share a similar heritage as the duduk. In Azerbaijan and Iran it is called a balaban or balaman; in Georgia - duduki; in Turkey the mey. There are both similarities and very noticeable important differences between the Armenian duduk (the shape, the technique and the quality of sound) and neighboring instruments.

The Armenian name of the instrument is duduk or tsiranapokh –“apricot tree pipe”, because the Armenian duduk is made from the wood of the Apricot tree, while in other countries it is usually made from mulberry or other tree wood. The duduks’s body is carved from the wood of apricot trees and its reed, called “ghamish” or “yegheg”, is usually sliced from cane growing abundantly along the Arax River in Armenia.

Not the name only, but also the sound of duduk is very different when play musicians of different countries. The main difference from the different techniques of playing entirely controlled by the lips creating different sound qualities. The Armenian musicians us special technique that makes duduk sound very close to the human voice, and this very feature of Duduk sound is enriching the emotional expression to the extent of being the Armenian musical epics. In Armenia, the duduk performing art and technique were developed and refined, passing from generation to generation.”

Confusing: Balkan vs Armenian.

The way this article is written is confusing with first a section that claims that it is a flute, then "overview" which says it's a reed instrument. I've added a sentence that the "Balkan Duduk" to indicate that this is a minority interpretation of the term "Duduk". In fact, maybe the "Balkan Duduk" should be moved to the Kaval page, with only a link on the Duduk page?

Eijkhout 05:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)