Alphorn
The
alphorn or
alpenhorn or
alpine horn is a labrophone, consisting of a wooden natural horn of conical bore, having a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece, used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland and elsewhere. Similar wooden horns were used for communication in most mountainous regions of Europe, from the French Alps to the Carpathians. For a long time, scholars believed that the alphorn had been derived from the Roman-Etruscan lituus, because of their resemblance in shape, and because of the word
liti, meaning Alphorn in the dialect of Obwalden. There is no documented evidence for this theory, however, and, the word
liti was probably borrowed from 16th-18th century writings in Latin, where the word
lituus could describe various wind instruments, such as the horn, the crumhorn, or the cornett. Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner used the words
lituum alpinum for the first known detailed description of the alphorn in his
De raris et admirandis herbis in 1555. The oldest known document using the German word
Alphorn is a page from a 1527 account book from the former Cistercian abbey St.