Say violin and I think of a symphony. Say fiddle and I think country hoedown, or Irish song of alcohol and woe. Just curious.
Some “fiddles” have flatter bridges than violins do. This makes it easier to play double-stops (slurs), part of that good mountain sound.
Ah, but it’s the other way around. The word fiddle fithele shows up around 1200 in English.
Violin, not until 1579. Although it probably is around a bit earlier in Italian.
You made me curious. I thought it was an american word, but;
From m-w;
Middle English? Wow!
Shoulda known. Many old southern words are from Old English or German.
BTW; Many fiddles were home made. And from pretty ‘crude’ materials. Kudus to those old timers.
Peace,
mangeorge
I learned from a former orchestra teacher that “fiddle” was actually first used to describe violas. I don’t know how true this is; sorry.
Ma pappy always tole us younguns that the fiddle came into this world when people in the mountains of West Virginie din’t know how to play the violin.
In 1969, at the World Fiddle Championships, Yasha Heifitz (sp?) a violinist of world repute was asked why he did not join in the competition. His answer was that he didn’t play the fiddle. When asked if that wasn’t the same as playing the violin, he reputedly replied, “No, you must be taught to play the violin, but you must learn to play the fiddle by yourself.”
I cannot attest to the accuracy of the quote, but I concur with the sentiment.
Tris
“The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.” ~ Victor Borge ~
In his 1914 classic textbook, Orchestration, Cecil Forsyth almost exclusively refers to the instrument as fiddle. And he wasn’t writing about good ole folk.
When I was younger I used to hang around classical music types. I accompanied a friend who took violin lessons from a first-chair violinist of the Cleveland Orchestra. He most often said “fiddle” instead of “violin.” This is how they all talked at the Music School Settlement.
George Szell was the conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra years ago. An example of his cruel sense of humor: when told that one of his violinists would not be able to attend rehearsal because he had fallen down the stairs, Szell asked: “Did he break his fiddle?” :rolleyes:
Fiddle and violin are both derived from the same origin. But did Germanic borrow from Latin, or did Latin borrow from Germanic??? According to the Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology:
The Romance form viola developed when the intervocalic -t of Vulgar Latin *vitula first softened to -d- and then disappeared. Intervocalic -d- is often an unstable sound in many languages. So viola is the primary form related to fiddle; the word violin came from the Italian diminutive violino.
When people started paying a million bucks for a Stradivarius violin. 
milo
spittin’ tobacky
Ah been fiddlin’ fer nigh onta twenny years and ah hain’t never seen no flat bridge on no vi’lin nor no fiddle, neither. Them fancy folk up ta Ca’n’gie Hall plays double stops (which hain’t slurs) jes’ as fine as ol’ Uncle Clem useta back in his fiddlin’ days afore he married Aunt Jessie. Them barn dances weren’t never the same oncet Jesse Harridan got hol’ of Uncle Clem an’ made him go t’ thet thar Baptist church.
I think those that play in a country or bluegrass setting usually don’t refer to their instrument as a violin, lest they look pretentious before their fans. By the same token, whenever I hear Izthak Perelman refer to it as a fiddle, I get the impression he is trying to connect with people who perhaps aren’t big classical music fans…