Dakota folk songs and their Inner-Asian connection
Dakota folk songs and their Inner-Asian connection

Summary/Abstract: In 2004–2005 with the help of a Fulbright scholarship the author studied the folk music of two Native American tribes, the Dakota and the Navajo. The article presents the main characteristics of the Dakota folk songs (scales, range, rhythm, melodic movements) and their classification. The author calls the attention to the most characteristic similarities and differences between Dakota songs and the Turk- Mongolian folk music and shows a descending pentatonic “quintile-shift” melody group whose specific forms blossom in the Dakota, Mongolian, Hungarian and Cheremis-Chuvash folk music.

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