At 10:39:51 PM on Wednesday, May 18, 2005, C. Darwin
Goranson wrote:
> I've read that there's a musical instrument attested to in
> PIE: *krut
> What kind of musical instrument would it be?
Welsh <crwth>, Old Irish <crot> 'harp, cithara'. The Celtic
word was recorded in the 6th century by Venantius Fortunatus
as <chrotta>; this seems to have been borrowed into Germanic
as *hrotta or the like, whence OHG <rot(t)a>, and thence
into Old French as <rote> (also the modern word), <route>,
etc. All of these refer to stringed instruments.
Brian