Why is a recorder... called a recorder? | Team Recorder 

As a Sicilian myself, I really appreciate that you included the Italian translation as well the Sicilian one ☺️

in Hong Kong recorder is mostly referred as 牧童笛, literally shepherd boy flute

In Finnish nokka means actually a bird's beak and nenä means a nose but a person's nose can also be called a "beak" in casual conversations.

Wow this is so neat! I never understood why in English it would be called a recorder, now it makes sense. In European Portuguese, we usually call it 'flauta de bisel', which translates to bevel flute or chamfer flute. I suppose that falls into the beak flute category. Funnily enough, I'd never considered the name in Portuguese until this video either, and had no idea what bisel meant, so lots of learning!

You mention Chinese 直笛 (zhi di) 'straight flute'; I believe this term is used primarily in Taiwan. In the mainland I've always heard 竖笛 (shu di) 'vertical flute.'

Thank you so much for including my klingon translation, what an honour to be indirectly mentioned in a video, absolutely made my day. Also thanks for the video, It's so interesting to know it in all these different languages.

You answered a question of a lifetime! Thanks a lot for sharing your research! I had related the word with latín "recordare" but was not certain about the connection nor the reason for it. Your enthusiasm about this beautiful instrument is contagious! I play the recorder too. IT's too sad to see how undervalued this instrument is... I've heard some musicians, even teachers, call it (in a mocking tone) "tubo de plástico escolar" or "pito sinfónico" among other scornful and disrispectful names. By the way, in Spanish we call it flauta "de" pico (not "di") or flauta dulce (as you already pointed out). Thank you again!

I love this. It's so interesting. And I'm very impressed with your pronunciation in all the languages!

Now: Spotify playlist Then: B I R D playlist

The explanation and categorization is so clear. I also love how your Mandarin intonation (including contour) is perfect; it's really reassuring to see a musician put emphasis on this aspect :D

According to my teacher, a certain Layton Ring, who knew and worked with Arnold and Carl Dolmetsch back in the day, 'recorder' was re-introduced as a name, on a whim of Arnold Dolmetsch, who was the man behind the whole recorder revival, so to speak. During the renaissance and definitely the baroque era it was referred to as a flute. And if you wanted to be more specific you could call it a block flute or a fipple. Normally, however it was the 'other' flute, the transverse flute that was specified (Italian: 'flauto traverso', German 'Querflöte'). So you had flutes and transverse flutes but they were all just generally referred to as flutes. I haven't dedicated much time to researching this myself, I'm going by what I was taught back then, but it was always very clear when I looked at scores, the Händel Sonatas for example, that the umbrella term 'flute' was used 99% of the time. Bear in mind that printed music didn't normally specify instruments until round about 1600, the different pitch ranges were given, more or less, as soprano, alto, tenor and bass (or equivalent terms) and you would play the music on whatever you had at hand. I'd be interested to know what your experience has been. The term 'recorder' has certainly become very established now but do you recall seeing it in original manuscripts? Vivaldi and Castello for example would have said 'flauto', Van Eyck would have said 'fluyt' or 'blokfluyt', Bach tended to use the Italian term, Handel said 'flute'. I wonder who was actually saying 'recorder'. I mean, fair play to Arnold Dolmetsch, considering what he did for the recorder, he sort of has the right to give a name of his choice to an instrument which had been forgotten about for nearly a century.

My god, the medieval ipod was a parrot. o_O

One thing that annoys me about the Polish "flet prosty" is that it also literally means "simple flute". A lot of people don't take it seriously because of that.

Captain Picard played something like a garklein or a sopranino in one episode.

En Argentina: "flauta dulce" (Sweet flute) ❤

Some note for hungarian name: Rekorder is furulya, flute is fuvola in hungarian. Both words started fu = fúj what means blows. With the endings (lya, la) means something what you have to blow. The middle parts of these words somehow imitates the way how you have to blow these instruments and the sound of these. If you pronaunce well, you will feel it with your mouth/lips 🙂

In Russia we also have folk recorder like instruments Sopelka, Svirelle, Doudka

My recorder was bought as a "tussefløyte", which has been translated as "pixie flute" on my music book that I got with it (Norwegian folk music book for the recorder/pixie flute). It is, however, likely that it originally was "tyskerfløye", or "german flute", as it probably came to Norway from Germany. Same with "sjøfløyte" ("sea flute", came with ships). They're both names for Norwegian recorders. Not quite sure if there's an actual different between these two and "regular" recorders sold by that name ("blokkfløyte")

a finn here! "Nokka" is also literally "beak". It's just also used as a more silly word for "nose"

Czech/slovak: zobcová [zɔpt͡sɔvaː](there's no 'k' in it) flétna [flɛːtna]/flauta [flaʊ̯̯ta]. Anyway, good job. Especially non-anglo-germanic languages can be tricky (for english speaker).

My god, such care put into the phonetics, the enunciation and the tones. You are brilliant! I'm so happy I found this channel!

In mainland China, it's called "竖笛"(shù dí), also meaning straight or vertical flute. It's interesting to learn that the same instrument is called "直笛" (straight flute), “木笛”(wooden flute) or "牧童笛" (shepherd boy flute) in Taiwan and Hong Kong 😂

Hello, I'm from 🗿Chile 🇨🇱, and this recorder is called in spanish, "flauta dulce", but exist others kinds of recorders. This other recorders are called "Quenas (the 'soprano' ) , and " "quenacho", (the more bass quena). This recorders haven't blocks, and this function is realizes by bottom lip of the mouth. The Quena are present in Bolivia, Perú, north of Argentina, north of Chile and parts of Ecuador. His origin is from Inka empire, and the Aymara culture, preserves this instruments. Now the sound of quenas are present in the folk music of all of this countries. In Rapa Nui, (Eastern Island, 🗿Chile), exist other recorder called "Hio" that is made from plant like a bamboo. This recorder are present in Tahiti too. Thanks for give us your talent in the recorder and sympathy in your videos. Greetings from 🗿Chile 🇨🇱

I have the book The Bird Fancyer's Delight. I have yet to learn any of them. One day I will. Love the languages section. So fascinating!

Thank you, Sarah! It can't be too easy to collect all this information. I always find it weird why is it called recorder, and now I finally understand it. :)

I'm Portuguese. When I was younger we also use to call it "flauta de bisel" which translates to "bevel flute".

we call it 竖笛 in China mainland, it is a quite straight forward name which literally means vertical flute.

Loved the compilation of names! In Portugal recorders are mainly known as "flauta de bisel" (bevelled flute), due to the sloping angle of the beak. "Flauta doce" is mostly used in Brazil.

The Gaelic term feadóg describes the penny whistle or Irish whistle. It's what I learned on when I was six. I found one in a puddle in the gutter, and I taught myself to play by ear the few songs I knew BY HEART. My dad, a onetime professional musician, saw me playing it which annoyed him so much he asked me to throw it away and gave me a wooden recorder instead.

In Polish also the word 'fujarka' exists which takes some resemblance to Hungarian 'ferula', but it means a pipe played by shepherds. I admire your enthusiastic spirit for recorder and recorder musicians (you bring joyness to my heart). By the way couple of years ago I discovered a duduk from Armenia and I've fallen in love with its soul tugging sounds... but I decided to play the recorder and it's amazing! Thank you and keep your bright spirit.

Thank you Sarah. You inspired me to find some greek recorder books by typing in the word ΦΛΟΓΕΡΑ. I love Greek folk music.

Amusing, witty, lively and (most important) informative. Thank you.

In Indonesia, there are many kinds of "suling" so we call the recorder, the "suling rekorder"... which back-translates as "recorder flute" 😅

This is amazing. Well done. Thankyou so much Sarah. I so love your channel.

There exists the archaic meaning of the verb 'to record' (to repeat, to practise, to sing a tune by heart/from memory) connected to remembering the singing of birds. I like the idea that the recorder chirps and tweets like a bird.

Halilit is indeed right, but it means "small flute", because Halil means flute. The word for flute does come from our word for hollow

Very interesting analysis, particularly the different naming groups :) I can totally confirm the Czech name for the recorder being "zobcová flétna", just a small correction of the pronunciation, the "c" is pronounced a bit like "ts" (like the "z" in "Mozart"), not "k", but other than that it was really good :)

I had moved from Germany to New Zealand about 17 years ago and had often been wondering, "How do you get from 'Blockflöte' to 'recorder'??" - Now I know! Thank you Sarah! And I once had liked an actress named Katie Reynolds who originally also was from Derby :-)

If you told me a month ago that I'd be following a recorder channel on RU-vid, I'd have said you were crazy. Turns out it's a far more interesting instrument than my primary school experience would have suggested.

I was surprised at first that it wasn't called just 'flute' in English as it's the most common type of flute, used in schools and very accessible. In French, people call it 'flute' and would only say 'flute a bec' in a technical sense, or as opposed to another type of flute (provided they have the knowledge). My daughter (English speaking) plays 'Western concert flute', now that's the type people in England call 'flute'! But I still catch myself calling the recorder 'flute'.

I'm from Australia, but was born in the UK and have spent time there, and while it is mostly known as a recorder I usually prefer to call it an English Flute, but I also know it as a Fipple Flute (after the mechanism that produces the sound and can also refer to any flute that has a channel to direct the airflow onto the sharp edge).

Reminded by languages referring to the recorder as a "straight flute"; in Finnish, we also have a direction-based name for the concert flute, "poikkihuilu", which would mean "across flute". We usually call it just "flute" though, so the "poikkihuilu" is mostly just for disambiguation. The recorder is always "nokkahuilu".

In Ukraine we have a „sister” for recorder , called „sopilka”💛 it’s ethno-wind flute, which is fastly developing from folk music to other styles (baroque, classical music, jazz etc) … Thanks for this video💛

I've always wondered why it's called a recorder. This whole video is fascinating!

Hi! In Portugal we call the recorder "flauta de bisel" (bevel flute). Flauta Douce is an erudite name used only by professional players, while Flauta de Bisel is the common name for it. The word "Bisel" (bevel) is related to the design of the labium.

In Spain: Flauta Dulce or Flauta de Pico.

Hi, a Greek here. The average Greek laypersons do call the recorder "φλογέρα" (floghera) but that's absolutely wrong. You see a floghera is an end-blown flute without a fipple, hence not a recorder. The correct Greek name for the recorder is "φλάουτο με ράμφος" (flaouto me ramfos), literally "flute with a beak".

In Brazil, a recorder is called (I will backwards translate for better understanding) "sweet flute", and a traditional flute is called "transversal flute". The transversal flute got it's name from the position the flutist holds it, and the sweet flute got it's name from the sound, that is considered "more sweet" than the sound that the transversal flute makes.

Thank you, that was really interesting. When I was a boy I did some studies on a blockflöte, never knowing why it is being called like this. It took me years to discover the block inside. Now I know a lot more. Thank you.

I played this instrument when I was growing up in France in primary school. It was called "flute" or "flute a bec" from what I remember in 1991. Just this year (2020) when I wanted to learn to play the recorder, I searched flute but only the transverse instruments showed up. It was after finding this channel that I learned that it is called "recorder" in the English language. I plan to learn to play this instrument because I wanted to be adventurous and learn something new.

As a native Hebrew speaker, I never realized that the word "Halil" (flute) comes from the word "Halul" - Hollow. Get smarter every day! Lovely channel u got here. Love it! Halil - Flute Halilit - Little flute

I’ve read that, in English, we also call recorders fipple flutes. Thanks for this video: it was fun!

It was a time in France, when we could say "Une flûte douce", like "Il flauto dolce" (Italian, of course!), but almost always it is "La flûte à bec", which sounds a bit silly to me… Because my recorder is not a duck! Also the voice is not the same. "The name of the rose" was written by Umberto Eco and himself loved to play the recorder, and to listen "Pavane lachrimae", played by the great Frans Brüggen. Thank you Sarah for your videos !!!

We learn things every day. I consider myself bilingual and I would never have guessed the word recorder in English, not a word commonly used in conversation or in texts I read. I really appreciated the video and will show it to a colleague who does research on linguistics.

Wow! What a great video you've managed to do on something so "simple" as the origin of a name for an instrument!

My fav is estonian :D PLOKKFLÖÖT! It's something a ship would say

Fascinating! Thanks for all that research. So interesting that music and musical instruments are almost like an international language 🎵🎶❤️

Thanks from Japan Sara! mmm... Well, tate-fue should be pronounced as tate-bue. Cause in Japanese Language, euphonic change of unvoiced to voiced sound can frequently happen. Add to that "tate" means vertical, by the way lateral is "yoko" in Japanese. So lateral flute is called as yoko-bue.

I needed that. I wondered why and how the recorder is named and you gave me an excellent research. Thank you dolce Sarah.

Hi Sarah! I love your videos, thank you so much!! In Peru we have some sort of flute called "Quena" (pronounced kenah, from Quechua word 'Qina'). Traditionally made of cane but nowadays also made of wood. It existed way before Europeans came here. Some modern quenas have a block just like recorders, but traditional ones don't. You just blow to a mouthpiece, like a flute, but play vertically like a recorder. They have a 3 octave range and can do chromatics. Nice instruments :)

5:50 is ''flauta de pico". I Love your videos!

Greetings from the USA... Thank you for ALL your videos, Sarah!! I am a beginner and have been enjoying your videos and appreciate your enthusiasm and passion for all things "Recorder"... I am grateful you also include so many videos for beginners like me!!!

Thanks! I'll just comment that חלילית or Halilit in Hebrew is more a diminutive of חליל Halil which is a flute. There is a connection to it being hollow (in Hebrew Halul חלול) but the connection is already present in the word for flute. So I'd say it's not a "Hollow Flute" but a "Diminutive Flute".

In México we usually say "flauta barroca" when we're talking about a professional instrument like yours, and we say "flauta dulce" when referring to the cheaper verssions we use in (non music) schools.

Fascinating!!! I've been learning how to play the recorder after a really long time without playing it, and learning some of its history too is amazing!

I love watching your videos even though I don't play the recorder, but I do play the viola. I get inspired of your videos thanks to your passion for the recorder. And it's also thanks to you why I now know why the recorder is named "block flute" in swedish. Thank you!

Moreover, although 'furulya' is used in Hungarian for all kinds of recorders, but German 'Blockflöte' is preferred by some musicians to distinguish the Renaissance/Baroque recorder from the Hungarian shepherds' flute (folk music instrument; a wooden recorder with only six holes). See also the much larger Slovak counterpart 'fujara' - it's comparable in size with the bass recorders.

Thank you, the amount of children who have asked me WHY IS IT CALLED A RECORDER.? , and i have had to tell tbem i dont know. I am embarrassed to say, i have NEVER bothered to find out either! NOW i have ALL the answers at my finger tips. Thank you once again.

That is really interesting! It says a lot about the (families of) languages as well. Do you have a list of these different groups and names in all these languages?

also romania has a traditional flute the "caval" or the kaval which is a chromatic end-blown flute and is associated with shepards. the kaval is fully open at both ends, and is played by blowing on the sharpened edge of one end

Fun fact: In German the term "Blockflötengesicht" (recorder face) is used as a general insult.

That’s fascinating. All the different categories and words! 😁

I know this seems petty but I subscribed because you were almost able to pronunce "Nokkahuilu" correctly (pronounciation of "l" gave you away XD) and I was so impressed :D. I have heard some awful pronounciation attempts of Finnish words before and compared to those this one was astonishing. I do also greatly love all kinds of instruments and especially those you hear in folk music, but that was my stupid and petty reason to log in and subscribe XD

Native Spanish speaker here: absolutely right with _flauta dulce_ ("sweet flute"), that's the name I've know about it, and that's how appears in the _official_ Spanish dictionary ("flute with a mouthpiece at the top end", I think would be the translation). But I guess you wanted to write "flauta de pico" in the other category (5:49). That's another name I can found in Spanish, and "di pico" sounds so italian to me 😁 _Cosa? Mamma mía, la flauta di picco, bambina!_ 🤣 Cheers!

The two Chinese words 直笛 and 木笛 are used by different groups.The ‘straight’ flute is the plastic recorder ( or sometimes whistle) used in schools. The ‘wooden’ flute is the one used by recorder enthusiasts who somewhat look down on straight flutes...

At primary school the most common size was always known as Descant not Soprano. When and why did this change, Sarah? I've always loved the sound of this much maligned instrument. I've taught it to schoolchildren and learnt it mostly by ear so I loved the explanation of the name 'ricordare' and the link with birdsong. How great!

A little help with the Hungarian: that l and y is together, ly. It's like the j (y from yard) :)

In Romania, in symphony orchestra it is called "flaut drept" (straight flute). It became popular as “block-flöte” in the early '70s due to the Romanian rock band Phoenix in which it was played by the bassist Josef Kapl.

In the north of Argentina, we have a QUENA. It has only 6 holes in the front and it's similar to the other local or traditional flutes the you showed in the end of this video. I pitty the poor birds, but loved the post!!!

Very enjoyable, your other videos as well. I only stumbled across your channel some days ago. Apart from Ian Anderson or Yousef Lateef, I'm not so fond of the Querflöte (too lazy to look up the English word), but I love the sound of the recorder since I discovered Michala Petri 25 or 30 years ago. Send cuddles to the baby recorder in B flat ;)

I love how she says "Blockflöte" 😊 Yes, I'm from Germany

I knew there was a reason I liked recorders! What a delightful video and information..thank you!

Wonderful information, thanks! Excellent research.

And from Spanish (my ethnical language), recordar, also means to remember.

Hi, in Portugal we say too, "flauta de bisel". Thx, very nice.

I'm impressed by how well you can pronounce so many different languages!

Wellllllll that Finnish thing... "nokka" indeed means "beak", like the beak of a bird or a turtle. In the case of an airplane, the "nose" is called "nokka" in Finnish. :) However, the "nose" in the middle of your face is "nenä". But I'm delighted that you mentioned us! ^_^

In Latin América thanks to Perú and Bolivia we have the Quena (Kena) flute. The recorder we usually call it Flauta Dulce (Sweet Flute).

I can die in peace now. Thanks for the insight. A very peculiar choice for an instrument name indeed.

Honestly impressed with your pronunciation of 'blokfluit', cudos! :-)

Wow, that was comprehensive. Thank you!

Congratulations on the excellent quality content. I'm really liking you, Sarah! In Brasil: Flauta Doce! We have the Baroque recorder and the Germanic with differences in the positions of some notes.

The most common I hear in Central Portugal is flauta de bisel, or bevel flute (presumably referring to the labium). Often just called a flauta it is differentiated from a concert flute which is referred to as flauta transversal.

Respect! Ethymology and classical music. I dared not dream to find those two domains brought together

As a linguist and a music lover this video is the ultimate nerd-out!!!!!

Thank you! That question really bothered me for quite some time😆

Plautang matamis, ngayon ko pa lang narinig yun ah. (It's my first time to hear Sweet Flute).... wow

Nice video! Just a quick correction: in Hebrew, the word 'halil' (flute) is in itself related to 'halul' (hollow). Therefore 'halilit' (recorder) can not be translated as 'hollow flute'. 'halilit' is simply the feminine diminutive version of 'halil'. So recorder in Hebrew is roughly a 'little flutess' :)

5 months later, I'm here to tell you that Faroese, also a North Germanic language called the recorder a blokkfloyta which means... well yeah, block flute :) As opposed to the flute which is referred to either as just a floyta (flute) or a tvørfloyta (a not-straight flute... an across flute, maybe?). Thanks for this. As an organ player "block flute" is usually one of our registers (as ours are usually in German) and I have thought about picking up the recorder just to challenge myself. Thanks for your videos. :)

I've just learned a new word in my native tonque (Russian) from someone who doesn't speak the language! ))) Thank you!) I used to refer to this instrument as a recorder.