Musical instruments and music in Proto-Indo-European
From: C. Darwin Goranson
Message: 48656
Date: 2007-05-19
Since music and Indo-European studies are my dearest study-loves, the
desire to find a common ground between them is one of my lifelong
quests for knowledge.
Well, we have several words meaning "to sing", one word that
means "song" *sh2omen, and the European term *pesd [really *pezd]
which means both "to play the flute" and "to break wind softly". It's
likely that animal horn was used as a calling instrument, as is
common through many cultures. If I've missed anything here in regards
to musical references, please, tell me!
An interesting possibility exists in the fact that there is no
documentation of lute-like instruments in the Anatolian region until
the Hittites come around. Then there's information about a 2-stringed
string instrument, something akin to a lute or an oud (a musical
instrument still used in the Middle East). It seems to point to the
possibility of the Hittites bringing this "lute" (which may be
matched with the common-gender "GIS.huhupal" of inscriptions) with
them from wherever they came from (assuming, as I do, that the
Hittites are non-indigenous in Anatolia). Is it then possible that
the PIEans had some form of lute-like stringed instrument? What
potential ancestry can be made of the name of the wooden "huhupal"
instrument?
Another interesting Hittite instrument name is that of the rattle (or
possibly harp), GIS.mukar/mukn-(as) (neuter-gender). The r/n
heteroclitic suggests an IE origin. It bears no resemblence to the
Sumerian form.
The fact that the Hittite word for "drum", neuter-collective "arkam(m)
i", has a reflex in the common-gender word "arkammiyala", "drummer",
suggests at least some ancestry. It too bears no resemblence to the
Sumerian form.
The verb used for playing the drum and lute, "walh-(mi)", simply
means "to strike". For the rattle, only the verb "har(k)-(mi)", "to
hold, to have" is used, which, when taking into account that all
stringed-instruments are associated with the verbs "walh-(mi)"
and "hazzik-(mi)" (same meaning as walh-), suggests that it's more
likely to mean a shaker or sistrum.
Does anybody see any similarities here with any other IE cultural
items, or potential root connections in the names?