Simon, a charaid,

I'm sorry I missed everything this week, including St Andrew's. No,
I haven't read Sally Harper yet, I'm still trying to finish the last
book! Maybe after the transcriptions go up on the site.

Here's another hypothesis I've been working on. Basically I've
decided that Bunting's 'fuíoll' terminology is based on the
word 'fuáil' which is bogusly translated. The full article starts at
page http://www.calumcille.com/modhan/gleusan/3C.html on my website.

Bearing in mind what appears to have led to the creation of the terms
based on the element 'chanas', a worst case scenario can be
constructed to explain the possibly false origin of the three terms.

Assumptions: Irish antiquarians such as William Beauford are looking
for Irish terms for musical notes. Educated in Latin with a little
Greek, they are most likely aware of the corresponding Greek and
Latin words for a musical note, 'φθόγγος'
(sound) and 'sonus'
(sound). They presume that the ancient Gael would have followed suit
in using the Gaelic word for 'sound' as the word for a musical note.
They are not adept at the grammatical use of lenition in Irish (eg
when to add an H to a word). They know that the Gaelic word for
sound is 'fúaim'. It probably developed in connection with the
word 'úaim' which also means sound. They discover this latter word.
They don't know the meaning of the word 'fuaighel'.

Step: A manuscript of O' Clery's glossary, which contains no English,
is consulted. The entry shows 'uaim .i. fuaighel'. 'Uaim' is
misinterpreted as meaning 'sound' and consequently, 'fuaighel' is
misinterpreted as meaning 'sound'. In fact, the word 'fuaighel' here
explains that the headword 'uaim' means 'a seam'; the word 'seam'
would more properly be spelled 'úaimm'.

Step: The entry 'uaim.i. fuaighel' is copied down at some stage
without the sign '.i.' which denotes equivalence in meaning between
the two words.Step: The entry 'uaim .i. fuaighel' is copied down at
some stage so that 'uaim' is spelled 'uan'.

Step: The entry is understood second hand as meaning 'sound'. 'Uan'
is interpreted as representing a badly written number one instead of
a badly written 'úaimm'. The term 'uan fuaighel' (one sound) is
conceptualised.

Step: The adjectives 'beg' (small) and 'mór' (big) are applied
to 'fuaighel'. The terms 'fuaighel beg' (little sound) and 'fuaighel
mór' (big sound) are conceptualised.

Step: 'Harmony' is posited as an alternative meaning to 'sound'.

Step: William Beauford presents his three terms to Henry Walker,
replete with lenition difficulties in relation to syntax, gender and
meaning.

Step: Edward Bunting applies the three terms to three tunings of the
Gaelic harp.

I just can't imagine why any dictionary that no longer exists would
ever show the word 'fuaigheal' as
meaning 'sound/harmony'. 'Fuígheall' is a different matter, but I
strongly suspect that this spelling 'uan' is extremely significant
and points us towards 'fuaigheal' as the key word in the origin of
this mystery.

Beannachdan,



Alasdair


--- In clairseach@..., simon@... wrote:
>
> Hi Alasdair I have just been looking at the part of Sally harper's
> book that discusses Welsh manuscripts of English music theory...
some
> wild translations and misuse of English and Latin terms going on
> there too. Have you seen this? Simon
>
>
>
>
> On 26 Oct 2008, at 18:55, Alasdair Codona wrote:
>
> > A' chàirdean,
> >
> > If you think Bunting or his source made a big day out of 'chanas',
> > wait until you read about JFC Lacy who reinterprets and reworks
the
> > poor benighted verb form even further than Bunting. On 2 June
1890,
> > F. St. John Lacy presented a paper to the Royal Musical
Association
> > called Notes on Irish Music which contains the following
information:-
> >
> > "There was one grand scale in use which went by the name of
> > Ardfideach, and this was divided into three parts, called
Basascanus
> > (or bass), Cionar (tenor), and Riunchanus (treble). When the
harpers
> > met at Belfast in 1792 this was the scale they used, and which I
here
> > reproduce from Bunting, as it gives the compass of their
harps ..."
> >
> > Nowhere does Bunting transmit the information that any scale of
the
> > Gaelic harp was named 'ardfideach', which is a misspelliing
> > of 'airfideach', a old, poetic Gaelic word that Bunting simply and
> > rightly presents, in p30 of the General Vocabulary in his 1840
> > volume, as meaning 'music, musician, harmony'.
> >
> > The last A in the element 'chanas' is spelled as a U, a convention
> > indicates that 'chanas' is understood here as a noun rather than a
> > part of a verb. This follows the precedent of the spelling and
> > interpretation in Bunting's 1840 Introduction. Lacy's
word 'cionar'
> > seems to derive from 'ciontar/cionthar' (music/melody) on p31 of
the
> > Vocabulary and 'riunchanus' also seems to have derived from 'rinn'
> > (music/melody) on p35. According to Bain, the word 'cionthar' is
> > translated as 'music' in Shaw's dictionary of 1780. The Highland
> > Society's Dictionary of the Gaelic Language spells it -cion'thar-
and
> > translates it as 'querulous music', using Alasdair mac Mhaighstir
> > Alasdair as a source.
> >
> > 'Rinn' may in fact derive from the ancient masculine word 'rind'
> > (point). It is equivalent in meaning to the latin word 'punctum'
and
> > was mainly used in relation to poetry. It may have been one of
the
> > Gaelic words for a musical note but there are no clear examples of
> > such usage. Bunting's term 'rim ceól' or 'rimm ceol' may derive
> > from 'rím ceoil' which may have meant 'counting of music',
referring
> > perhaps to the counting of beats during the process of musical
> > composition, in a fashion analogous to counting the syllables of
> > rhyme.
> >
> > Beannachdan,
> >
> >
> >
> > Alasdair
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>