Dulcimer

The word dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments.

(England, Scotland, United States)

Hammered dulcimer

(southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland)

Hackbrett

(Ukraine), tsimbl (Ashkenazi Jewish), țambal (Romania) and cimbalom (Hungary) may refer to either a relatively small folk instrument or a larger classical instrument. The santouri (Greece) (called "santur" in the Ottoman Empire) is almost identical to the Jewish and Romanian folk instruments.

Tsymbaly

(Iran and Iraq)

Santur

(northern India and Pakistan) is constructed and tuned differently from the santur of Iran and Iraq

Santoor

(Cambodia, Laos, Thailand)

Khim

(China), Đàn tam thập lục (Vietnam), yanggeum (Korea)

Yangqin

The word dulcimer originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers".^[1] Variants of this instrument are found in many cultures, including:

The original

Appalachian dulcimer

Banjo dulcimer

In the Appalachian region of the U.S. in the nineteenth century, hammered dulcimers were rare. There, the word dulcimer, which was familiar from the King James Version of the Bible, was used to refer to a three or four stringed fretted instrument, generally played on the lap by strumming.

Variants include: