Talk:Sevdalinka

Bosniaks vs. Bosnians
The article states that Sevdalinka is the national music of Bosniaks. Would it not be more correct to say Bosnians? I don't think that in this case music has anything to do with religion, etc. --dcabrilo 07:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Tjah... hmmm.... hmmmmmmmm... now, that one's really tricky. I know Bosnian Croats who adore sevdalinka. But, the fact is that verses of sevdalinkas are full of references to islam and turk loanwords...


 * And, if we put aside the fact that I think that this diversity of nations we have on Balkans is just insane and just stick to Wikipedia terminology, there's no Bosnian nation. The nation is Bosniak.


 * So I really don't know... I'd leave it as it is now. But, if you change it, I won't revert or anything since I'm not quite sure what is the right version... --Dijxtra 14:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What about trying to avoid that kind of wording all together? In a matter of fact, I don't think national music is a common term in English. It's probably a translation of narodna muzika. In the you-know-what language, narod means a nation, but also people, or folk. So a better translation would be folk music. The part about religion as a common theme of course has merit, and should be written in the article, but it is not uncommon for artists of any color in Bosnia, or even Serbia, Macedonia, etc. to use such themes. In fact, I think that from musicological point of view, sevdalinka is a mix of different influences in Bosnia. --dcabrilo 17:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sevdalinka was the traditional song of urban Bosnia, which meant mostly, but not exclusively Muslim. And since "national" is in normal English the adjective of "country", not of "ethnicity", we should just call it "national music of Bosnia". Zocky | picture popups 21:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You both have a point... we could say something like "Sevdalinka is national music of Bosnia. Although it is saturated with turcisms and heavily influenced by islamic tradition, it is also popular across the former Yugoslav region, especially in Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia. Sevdalinka is mostly preformed and admired by Muslim people of this region, but also has audience among other peoples." Something like that.
 * I rephrased the sentence somewhat; I don't particularly endorse ethnid divisions, but I think it would be unfair to omit it from the intro. After all, look at the list of prominent performers...Duja 04:00, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The sevdalinka emerged among the Muslim (Bosniak) urban population during the ottoman period and has since then been peripherally approached by other ethnicities in the region, which does not change the fact that the sevdalinka in origin belongs to the Bosniak tradition (or nation if you like). The literature is perfectly clear on this. Praxis Icosahedron (talk) 10:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Abuse of musical terms
It's not hard to see that author's (or authors' as it may be) knowledge about music and especially world folk music in general is very, very basic. For example in multiple locations the term harmony is used despite the fact that sevdalinka, like majority of folk music, does not feature harmony in any example I've heard.

Harmony is a concept of western classical music that defines specific rules of polyphonic movement, and polyphonic accompaniment to melodic content (most specifically, chord progressions, and features such as arpeggio and ostinato) and until very, very recently (read: 20th century) it was related exclusively to diatonic scales, and virtually unused and unknown in any modal system save from very developed forms of Indian classical music which sevdalinka has no direct relation to any way.

Yes, in modern interpretation sevdalinka songs have been somewhat harmonized to an extent, for purpose of instrumental accompaniment, but sevdalinka, like most folk music, is modal -- meaning that it uses characteristic, non-diatonic scales and rules of melodic movement such as often and common use of minor second and minor third to establish it's sad, melancholic mode, and moreover, sevdalinka is purely melodic, and originally fully monophonic music (even in modern days instruments typically fully follow the main melody of the vocal, with only infrequent oblique features but none or scarce harmony at best). The only polyphonic musical traditions from Bosnia are gange and "žetalačke pjesme" but even their polyphony is actually heterophonic, dissonant, and as a consequence actually in-harmonic.

While there is only inferrential evidence, sevdalinka is by largest part based off Sephardic and Al-Andalus music (even lyricaly, such as the omnipresent "aman, aman" figure that has evident prior usage in Ladino and Andalusian music centuries before the Turks came to Bosnia) to the extent that some songs use the same melodies or blocks of text translated from Ladino. To some extent it's also based on folk traditions of middle east that originate in Iraq and have been brought to Balkans by Turks, and old Ilyrian and Slavic folklore indigenous to Balkans. But it also has roots in ancient Balkanic music that ancient balkanic conquerors of Anatolia brought there (the Phrygians), which is all those Greek-like elements, and those elements Turks actually found in their new homeland and embraced into their culture.

I'm writing this because last time I edited the article, some "biser" reverted on basis of purely not having a clue what I'm talking about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.78.201.134 (talk) 10:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I like this rant, like any other based on factoids and strawman. Who knew, sevdalinka, contrary to all we know about it, is not a Bosnian song after all ;-P ౪ Santa ౪  99°  17:14, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

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What language is sevdalinka in?
Maybe this is a dumb question but I can't find it confirmed anywhere. Bosnian? Please add this info. 166.196.114.12 (talk) 07:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC)