At 09:47 AM 1/27/2006, Arthur Ness wrote: >No, it's probably derived from the Italian, Oboe. I forget the reason. >But often in old German foreign words that begin with vowels have an added >H: Hobrecht for Obrecht, Horazio for Orazio, Harfe for arpa, Hoboe for >oboe, Harlekin for Arlequino etc.
Wandering even further from nails on the strings of Sor's guitar, wouldn't the Italian have been derived in turn from the French? "Haut bois" to "hautbois" to "oboe" to "hoboe" or even "hautbois" to "hoboe" to "oboe" seems a more logical linguistic transition than "alto legno" to...well, anything related to "oboe." Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
