Sooey pig call origin4/30/2023 The mix of English and Irish seems odd – but then again there is the very different “Irish Ho-Hoane” in the first volume of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book I was puzzled about that title until I learned that it is generally understood as an attempt to transcribe “ochón”, a cry of grief or a lament and that tune certainly seems to be a lament, nicely recorded by among others Andrew Lawrence-King’s Harp Consort: But the vowels seem all wrong (no idea how it would have been pronounced in Irish in that era). So Farnaby’s title would be “the New Work” – a little advertising slogan. work (including “opus”) – the “th” is pronounced “h”. The Irish word that came to mind was “saothar”, i.e. Long ago and far away I played the harpsichord and the English virginalists were among my favorites. Getting a bit tangential, but … Mars in Est-ce mars is the god, not the month: the first line of the song is "Est-ce Mars le grand dieu des alarmes que je vois?" (Is it Mars the great god of alarms that I see?). This all seems like quite a stretch, so I doubt "sa-hoo" is intended as a reference to Samhain there is probably a better explanation that's off limits to me given my extremely rudimentary knowledge of gaelic languages. On the other hand, the _new_ Samhain might be construed Beltaine. Of course, "est-ce mars" has a very springtime sound to it: "is it March ?" Springtime would correspond to the Beltaine festival. "Sa-hoo" is possibly a _very_ poor attempt at pronouncing Samhain / Sauin, the gaelic autumn harvest festival. P.S Apparently Farnaby had a penchant for amusing song titles other virginals are named "Put Up Thy Dagger, Jemy" and "Wooddy-Cock". My late husband, the (English and) Celtic scholar Brendan O Hehir, might well have been able to answer your question - so you might cast your net in the direction of living scholars of Irish or Scottish Gaelic. The French version, an "air of the court," is attributed to the composer Pierre GUÉDRON (1566 ca-1620 ca), which makes him of the same generation as Farnaby. I just listened to a lovely version of "Est-ce mars?" ( ) and no words in it would lend themselves to being anglicized as "Sa-hoo" (so far as I could tell). I vote for it being Gaelic, although Farnaby has Cornish roots. Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and music.Update - following a suggestion in the comments, here's the OED's entry for soho:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |