Die Stimme des Windes / The Voice of the Wind: A Linguistic History of the Bagpipe
Sprachliches zur Geschichte der Sackpfeife
Michael Peter Vereno

The Voice of the Wind represents a rare example of an in-depth analysis at the intersection of linguistics and musicology dealing with the bagpipe, an equally curious instrument. The bagpipe has occurred on different continents in its centuries-old history and has long been the subject of legend. Some of the legends have found their way into standard works of musicology and wait for being disentangled by linguistic investigation. On the other hand, current etymologies of words for ‘bagpipe’ suffer from a misguided understanding (of the history) of the cultural artifact.

The Voice of the Wind discusses in detail, among other things, the alleged examples of ancient bagpipe culture, etymologies of Romance bagpipe terms proposed by such prominent scholars as Gamillscheg and Corominas, and the etymology of Dudelsack that had previously been only vaguely formulated. By investigating both bagpipe terms in numerous languages (Indo-European, Basque, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Berber, Semitic, Tungusic, Japanese) and construction features of the instruments, a detailed picture is drawn that enables the author to break with traditional views of etymology and organology.