(The picture is of a Latin cithara)Different types of instrument in the 'guitar family' originate from all across Europe in the 12th century. The tanbur, the setar and the sitar were originally from ancient central Asia and India. The oldest known iconographic representation of an instrument displaying the main features of a guitar is a 3,300 year old stone carving of a Hittite bard.
The word guitar was adopted into English from the Spanish Guitarra, German Gitarre and French Guitare - all taken from the Latin Cithara.
The guitar is descended from the Roman cithara, brought by the Romans to Hispania around 40 AD. By 1200 AD, the four-string guitar had evolved into two kinds: the guitarra moresca (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several soundholes, and the guitarra latina (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one soundhole but with a narrower neck.
In the 14th and 15th centuries the moresca and latina were dropped and these four course instruments were just called guitars.
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