Talk:Sevdalinka

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[edit] 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)