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Yodelling, the traditional singing of herders in the Swiss Alps, was recognized by the United Nations on Thursday as part of the world’s cultural heritage.
Yodelling was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, at a meeting in New Delhi.
“As the emblematic song of Switzerland, yodelling encompasses a wide variety of artistic expressions and is deeply rooted in the population,” the Swiss culture ministry said.
Yodelling is also sung in Austria and Germany, but while Switzerland joined forces with France to have the mechanical watchmaking tradition of the Jura mountains recognized by UNESCO in 2020, it pursued this nomination independently.
In Switzerland, yodelling is passed on in families, clubs, music schools or simply between singers.
More than 12,000 yodellers are members of one of the 711 groups of the country’s Federal Yodelling Association.
I definitely cannot Yodel!!
KC
