Re: LUTE-etymology

[Jon Murphy]

With many of you I have difficulty finding the "familiar Greek" LEUTIKA as
my Greek dictionary uses Greek characters. Is this lambda-epsilon
(eta)-upsilon-tau-iota-kappa-alpha?. And what is the HA, there is no "h" as
a character. Is a form I don't know of the English article "the" (Gr. "o",
"oi", etc.). My computer font isn't set up to make the left versus right
curved apostrophe that sets the "h" sound before the vowel, so I leave it
out. But if the tail points at the vowel you put in the "h", and if the tail
points away you don't.

Etymology is fun, and often informative, but also can be counter productive.
Similar sounds as pronounced, or spelled, today may have been quite
different. Michael has made a bit of a treatise on the Chinese lute - but at
the same time many on this list have said my "flat back" isn't a lute. No
problem there, just approaching etymology from the front end.

There is a river in Connecticutt called the Thames (and pronounced that
way), and one in London called the "Tems" and spelled Thames (the Norman
French couldn't pronounce the "th", and neither can my Norman French wife).
There are a myriad of sounds in language, and only a few basic forms of
musical instrument (when you go back to the origins). Although we trace the
progress of the Indo-European peoples linguistically by the similarities in
the words for native animals, etc. (if there is no relative word in an
earlier related language we assume a migration) - that doesn't account for
slang. The hammered dulcimer is of the zither family, and the Appalachian
dulcimer is of the lute family. (And don't quarrel with me on Kingdom,
phylum, class, order, family, genus and species - I picked the word family
out of the air). Just as our taxonomy of biology is a bit confused as we
learn more about the mixes and matches, so our taxonomy of musical
instruments. The same thing can evolve, or be developed, in different places
in different ways. External similarities don't imply a common origin.

The Skene Mandora Book (c.1615) has tabulation for a small instrument of
five strings tuned in fifths, but the historical mandora is a different
instrument. A borrowed word? Many words are borrowed, or misapplied.

Etymology is fun, I repeat. but one has to watch out for the urban legends
such as "for unlawful carnal knowledge". Parallel development is probably
the origin of most musical instruments - then after the original parallel
development the merging of styles and forms as the known world expanded.

Words apply only to a period, the word "ass" meaning one's rear end was
originally a euphemism for "arse" in polite company, and now is not proper
in polite company unless in the context of a donkey.

Best, Jon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roman Turovsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "LUTE-LIST" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: LUTE-etymology


> >> There is a fascinating discussion on the etymology of LUTE on the
French
> >> lute-list. In a nutshell: not only the Greek provenance of the word is
no
> >> longer discountable, but limiting oneself to Arabic provenance is
beginning
> >> to look ludicrous. The messages can be found on Yahoo-Groups.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I do not speak French. Would you mind to keep us
> > informed?
> Not at all, happy to oblige:
> In many European languages there are LUTE-like words that describe MARINE
> VESSELS of obvious derivation from the familiar Greek (HA)LEUTIKA, in
> Italian, Spanish, Catalan, French, AND last but not least- Slavonic
> languages.
> This certainly is corroborated by the iconographic evidence of lutes
> predating Muslims' spewing out of Hijaz.
> RT
>
> -- 
> http://polyhymnion.org/torban
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
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>
>
>