Tungehorn
The tungehorn (tongue horn) is a woodwind instrument used in traditional Norwegian music, which has a single-reed attached to a conical cow or goat horn. The instrument is single-reeded, with a separate reed body inserted into the instrument (heteroglot aerophone). The reed, or tunge is generally made of juniper, but spruce, maple, and birch bark have been used, as well as metal.
Tungehorn
- Field
- musical instrument
- Region
- Norway
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
The tungehorn (tongue horn) is a woodwind instrument used in traditional Norwegian music, which has a single-reed attached to a conical cow or goat horn. The instrument is single-reeded, with a separate reed body inserted into the instrument (heteroglot aerophone). The reed, or tunge is generally made of juniper, but spruce, maple, and birch bark have been used, as well as metal.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Tungehorn. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q6746165 · wikipedia · Tungehorn
In this article
Overview
Overview
The instrument is minimally documented, and nearly became extinct, and thus is little known in modern Norwegian folk music. The instrument appears to have been mainly prevalent in Norway, where at least 160 instrument have been attested, 100 of them photographically. The core areas are Hedmark, eastern Trøndelag and Oppland, and Agder. The instrument is not known outside of Scandinavia, though within that region several variants of the instrument are found. There are two different theories as to the origin of the tungehorn. One is that the instrument was inspired by the European clarinet that came to the region in the 1700s and was widely used in folk music in the 1800s. This theory finds support in the facts that the areas of greatest prevalence of clarinets coincides with the areas of the tungehorn, and that almost all the documented tungehorn date from the 19th and 20th centuries, with no known tradition prior to the early 1800s. A second theory argues that the folk reed instruments existed in Scandinavia prior to the arrival of the European clarinet, noting that a few known instruments pre-date the arrival of the European clarinet, and that the tungehorn's playing style is more similar to medieval instruments like the bagpipe rather than the orchestral clarinet.
It is associated with Norway.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
- Norway
Named but not plotted · 1
Tungehorn is associated with Norway.
Country
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Collectables
20,755 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- tumdak'Terminology
- tumpongTerminology
- Tūn Shí Tiān Dì 3Work
- TunelandWork
- TungnaTerminology
- tungsoTerminology
- TunicWork
- tuning forkTerminology
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own an object connected with Tungehorn?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.