I think that the "Third" is silent, but it is essentially music from what would normally defined as the Third World, although not exclusively. There seems to be some sort of informal demarcation between western and fringe eastern Europe for example.
Hmmm...I don't think that's quite so much the case now...though I can see your point from when the term first came into use, it seemed to be identified with African and Indian music.
There's a case for not calling it 'world music' at all, and returning to 'traditional' or 'roots' or something like that. However, music being what it is, it will squirm about and wriggle out of it's box, run off, get hitched to something from 1,000 miles away and breed a new thing...!!!
