Page "Troubadour" Paragraph 8

There is an alternative theory to explain the meaning of trobar as “ to compose, to discuss, to invent ”.

It has the support of some historians, specialists of literature and musicologists to justify of the troubadours ' origins in Arabic Andalusian musical practices.

According to them, the Arabic word tʕaraba “ song ” ( from the trilateral root Tʕ-R-B “ provoke emotion, excitement, agitation ; make music, entertain by singing ”) could partly be the etymon of the verb trobar.

Another Arabic root had already been proposed before: Dʕ-R-B “ strike, touch ”, by extension “ play a musical instrument ”.

They entertain the possibility that the nearly homophonous Dʕ-R-B root may have contributed to the sense of the newly-coined Romance verb trobar.