From: rochelle altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [b-hebrew] TRe: poetic accents and poetic metre
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:02:10 +0200
Goodness, what a tirade.
You know, it's usually a good idea to read the article in question. It
saves people from having a severe cases of podontitis..
You see, if you had read the article (or even paid attention to what I
wrote), you would know that Gregorian Chant is specifically mentioned as
the model used by some authorities to make claims about Hebrew Chant.
Now: Chant:
Latin cantum > Anglo-Norman French > chaunt > ModE. chant
Standard usage: "a measured, monotonous song; usually implying something
less tuneful than an air or song.."
The 14th-century name for a rooster, "chauntacleer" or "chaunteclere." is
onomatopoeic, after the cock's crow. -- which certainly is monotonous and
less tuneful than an air or song. So, for that matter is a charm chant.Both
cock's crow and charm chant reveal the standard perception of what is meant
by 'chant.'.
Now melody is one heck of a mnemonic, That the prose of the MT is set to
'chant' is one thing; to do it to songs is another.There are good reasons
why Psalms were known as '"hearpan sang" -- harp song, -- and that, Yonah,
is 11th-century English. Further, there were more than 300 attempts to set
English translations of the Psalms to melodies between the sixteenth
century and the first quarter of the twentieth century. And those melodies
emulated folk song! That also says something about the perceived
distinction between song and chant.
There are no synonyms in the English language. If 'chant' meant solely
'song', one of the words
would have disappeared centuries ago. It doesn't, though. It means a
specific type of song..
As far as the rest of the tirade goes (which I have snipped for rather
obvious reasons -- like some rreally wild assumptions and the subject
matter.)... I thought this was a scholarly list for the discussion of
Biblical Hebrew -- Dr. Caen's work is on intonational phonology in one
Biblical Psalm and has nothing to do with 'religion'. There has been far
too much 'faith' and 'religion' and 'belief 'arguments these last weeks.
"People longing to turn the word ''religion' into a byword' ??? Hoo, boy!
This one won the "prys."..
"Chant" does *NOT* mean "follow the Gregorian vocal patterns." It simply
means "set to music, sing." Whether that music happens to be the Gregorian
style or the style represented in the ta`amei ha-miqra', it is still
chanting. We *chant* the Torah, and we *chant* the psalms according to the
written notations of the Massoretes. This is *singing.* I do not know why
people have a bad taste in their mouths and want to argue against the
terminology of "chanting" in relation to the Hebrew Bible, but that is
precisely what we do. Such people would do well to look in a dictionary at
the derivation of the word "chant," the rejection of which reminds me of
people's longing to turn the word "religion" into a byword.
[snip]
[b-hebrew] TRe: poetic accents and poetic metre,
rochelle altman, 09/13/2006