Chiff and Fipple Forums

Not having names though is all about excluding the sasenach.

You may like the idea of that, the various placename projects however show just about every field or landmark was named, even if not all names were given to the surveyors. I think the sense of place was more important in this.

PB+J wrote:Not having names though is all about excluding the sasenach. It's like the natives not telling the explorer where the river starts or ends. Not assigning names resists colonization.

I would counsel against so readily ascribing Friel's theories to Fahey's motivations. How are we to explain the predominating practice of naming tunes, otherwise? Sliabh Geal gCua na Féile was first titled in Irish, not English, and it's by no means the only one. Colonization may originally have to do with it, but in the end a name in English for an originally Irish title is simply a translation for those who don't speak the language and would struggle mightily with trying.

I'm using sasenach here to describe a generic outsider.

I'm not accusing Fahey of anything at all: he can name his tunes as he pleases. But it's precisely the difficulty that results when someone want to play one of his tunes. Modern naming practices for songs are all closely connected to individual and corporate individual ownership: mapping and cataloguing it tracking it, making it so fees can be extracted. Folk music naming practices come out of an entirely different set of social and property relations.

PB+J wrote:I'm using sasenach here to describe a generic outsider.

Well, not to be a pedant, but by definition Sasanach (Anglicized as sassenach) specifically means an English person, and in average parlance it's used more broadly as a pejorative for someone perceived to be part of the cultural fabric of the Anglosphere. It couldn't rightly be applied to the French, for example.

Gall is the word for "foreigner" in both Irish and Scots Gaelic, but unlike "sassenach", it hasn't been adopted into English. That being the case, I would argue that stretching "sassenach" to include all outsiders is a further example of colonial appropriation.

PB+J wrote:Modern naming practices for songs are all closely connected to individual and corporate individual ownership: mapping and cataloguing it tracking it, making it so fees can be extracted.

ASCAP and BMI have tried this tactic with Trad tunes. Hasn't gone so well for them.

Just out of interest, I have only ever heard the word "Sassenach" used by Scots, and only ever to describe English people, usually men. I mean, it is what the word means. (Well, I suppose, more accurately, it means Saxon.) The Welsh have Sais, which is derived from the same root, as in the common South Welsh expression, "There's sais for you!" meaning something along the lines of "typical bloody English!"

benhall.1 wrote:Just out of interest, I have only ever heard the word "Sassenach" used by Scots, and only ever to describe English people, usually men. I mean, it is what the word means. (Well, I suppose, more accurately, it means Saxon.) The Welsh have Sais, which is derived from the same root, as in the common South Welsh expression, "There's sais for you!" meaning something along the lines of "typical bloody English!"

Not just the English, Doonhamers are sassenachs to the teuchter as well.

bwat wrote:

benhall.1 wrote:Just out of interest, I have only ever heard the word "Sassenach" used by Scots, and only ever to describe English people, usually men. I mean, it is what the word means. (Well, I suppose, more accurately, it means Saxon.) The Welsh have Sais, which is derived from the same root, as in the common South Welsh expression, "There's sais for you!" meaning something along the lines of "typical bloody English!"

Not just the English, Doonhamers are sassenachs to the teuchter as well.

Really? Why would that be? Are they descended from English people?

benhall.1 wrote:

bwat wrote:

benhall.1 wrote:Just out of interest, I have only ever heard the word "Sassenach" used by Scots, and only ever to describe English people, usually men. I mean, it is what the word means. (Well, I suppose, more accurately, it means Saxon.) The Welsh have Sais, which is derived from the same root, as in the common South Welsh expression, "There's sais for you!" meaning something along the lines of "typical bloody English!"

Not just the English, Doonhamers are sassenachs to the teuchter as well.

Really? Why would that be? Are they descended from English people?

You'll have to ask those who made the word up! Sassenach refers to lowland Scots and the English in modern usage. That's always been my understanding and the OED and Collins agrees with me (was surprised both got it right to be honest).

bwat wrote:That's always been my understanding and the OED and Collins agrees with me (was surprised both got it right to be honest).

I have the full, thirteen volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. I've just looked it up now. It only says the word applies to English people. There's no mention of Lowland Scots. It says exactly what I said, that it derives from "Saxon".

benhall.1 wrote:

bwat wrote:That's always been my understanding and the OED and Collins agrees with me (was surprised both got it right to be honest).

I have the full, thirteen volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. I've just looked it up now. It only says the word applies to English people. There's no mention of Lowland Scots. It says exactly what I said, that it derives from "Saxon".

You're right, the OED has it under saxon (cf. sassenach): https://www.oed.com/oed2/00214307 So, I'm not surprised they got it wrong!

benhall.1 wrote:There's no mention of Lowland Scots.

I've come across this information as well, though. The implication was that only a Scot - presumably a Highlander - would use "sassenach" to refer to a Lowlander. It would have nothing to do with ancestry so much as it would a typecast perception of greater English cultural influence.

bwat wrote:

benhall.1 wrote:

bwat wrote:That's always been my understanding and the OED and Collins agrees with me (was surprised both got it right to be honest).

I have the full, thirteen volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. I've just looked it up now. It only says the word applies to English people. There's no mention of Lowland Scots. It says exactly what I said, that it derives from "Saxon".

You're right, the OED has it under saxon (cf. sassenach): https://www.oed.com/oed2/00214307 So, I'm not surprised they got it wrong!

Not in the full, printed version that I have, it doesn't. It doesn't refer to it under "Saxon" but does have an entry for "Sassenach" in its own right, meaning English. I mean, that is what it means.

Now, since you mentioned it, I've looked and found references online to Highlanders calling Lowland Scots "Sassenach", but that appears to be an insult derived from the implication that they kind of might as well be English. I can't find any old reference to this at all, although the OED does have a quote from 1771 referring to the people of "the low country" as "Sassenachs". However, at the time, the term "low country" referred to areas which were then part of England. Maybe they were populated by Saxons. I can't find enough about this quickly, and suspect it would take a lot more research than just Googling in any case!

What I'm left wondering is how recent the application of the term to Lowland Scots is. That, I can't find. I suspect that I haven't come across it before because I'm not a Lowland Scot, being from Wales 'n' all.

benhall.1 wrote: Now, since you mentioned it, I've looked and found references online to Highlanders calling Lowland Scots "Sassenach", but that appears to be an insult derived from the implication that they kind of might as well be English. I can't find any old reference to this at all, although the OED does have a quote from 1771 referring to the people of "the low country" as "Sassenachs". However, at the time, the term "low country" referred to areas which were then part of England. Maybe they were populated by Saxons. I can't find enough about this quickly, and suspect it would take a lot more research than just Googling in any case!

What I'm left wondering is how recent the application of the term to Lowland Scots is. That, I can't find. I suspect that I haven't come across it before because I'm not a Lowland Scot, being from Wales 'n' all.

Modern usage, well I don't know what the kids would say about it, so a middle aged man's 'modern' usage is: I call them teuchters and thay call me a sassenach. I'm a lowland Scot. BTW I mean no offecnce and take none with regards to these words.

Historical usage, well I bow out there.

PB+J wrote: Key signature was literally and completely irrelevant to their musical practice.

An illiterate person still uses pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. All of these things are necessary to their practice of language.

They just can't read.

Mr.Gumby wrote: Older collections often made some claims about their settings, perhaps not claiming perfection or being definitive but even as early as O'Farrell you can find the claim 'tunes, set in proper style and taste'.

That was a time when people were forming committees to "ascertain and fix" the English language. There was an attitude that experts should establish the "correct" ways to do things.

Mr.Gumby wrote: Did Levey get the key signature completely wrong or did subsequent readers who played from the printed version in D?

That reminds me about the very good Scottish fiddler, who was an excellent sightreader. One day she was reading through an 18th century Scottish collection.

She was playing beautiful Strathspey after beautiful Strathspey in A minor, page after page. (The tunes were sorted by key.)

At some point she says "Hey! These are all in A Major!"

Yes at one point in the book the tunes went from A minor to A Major, but she kept reading everything in minor! (The tunes were improved, in my opinion.)

In like manner, the tune you showed is written in D...D minor. It would be easy enough for somebody who could recognize dots yet not understand key signatures to read that tune as if it were in D Major.

The accidentals at the beginning of the second part tell us that the key signature of one flat wasn't a slip of the pen.