Kulintang
/kʊ.liˈtaŋ/noun
A Philippine and eastern Indonesian musical ensemble or set of small, horizontally arranged bossed gongs played melodically.
Did you know?In parts of the southern Philippines, kulintang performance has traditionally been connected with court ceremony, courtship, status, and communal ritual—not merely entertainment.
Etymological Timeline
Pre-modern Austronesian Southeast Asia
Austronesian languages
*kulintang / *kolintang
“A regional family of names for horizontally arranged gong instruments; the deeper reconstructed source is uncertain.”
Early Malay-Indonesian usage
Malay
kulintang / kolintang
“A set or row of small tuned gongs used in ensemble music.”
16th–18th Century
Philippine languages
kulintang
“A gong-chime instrument and, by extension, the ensemble built around it.”
19th–20th Century
English
kulintang
“A Philippine gong ensemble or its melodic row of bossed gongs.”
Modern English
English
kulintang
“A term used in ethnomusicology for related gong-chime traditions of the southern Philippines and nearby Indonesian regions.”
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