Alain, An interesting linguistic semblance but, if I remember correctly, the artistic renderings of the "kithara" are of a lyre like instrument, held in front of the player and plucked or strummed.
Here's the story as I understand it: The Moors were kind enough to bring "el oud" to Spain, once those pesky Romans were through with it, from whence it crept across the Pyrenees into the waiting arms of the medieval Europeans. Being such as they were, they just had to corrupt the name into le oud..l'oud..l'out..lout..(where upon the dreaded and brutish English language is applied) and hence...lute. (or laute or liuto, yadda yadda) Irregardless - which is like REALLY, REALLY regardless - all of our myriad instruments of the lute family came from the oud. But, while our instrument basically died around 1800, the middle-eastern cultures have preserved the oud's popularity and oud playing figures strongly in currently popular music. To us on this list, we take considerable pride of artistic accomplishment in resurrecting and maintaining an arcane and "ancient" music form. With middle easterners, it's just what's on the radio. One man's opinion, I could be wrong, Rob Dorsey, Luthier Florence, KY -----Original Message----- From: Alain [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 2:52 PM To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: Nigel North on CGA! Some pretty good music from Kurdistan : http://www.issahassan.com/musique/chahnazeen5.mp3 . I am not a specialist but it sounds to me like the guy knows what he is doing. Could the Iranian "tar" be the origin of the Greek "khitarra"? Maybe with the same phonetic absorption of the leading article, like "el oud" becoming "lute" or "luth"? Alain To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
