Not sure if related, but knot is "granthi" in Sanskrit and the related "granthin" means reading books ________________________________ From: NetBehaviour <netbehaviour-boun...@lists.netbehaviour.org> on behalf of Alan Sondheim <sondh...@panix.com> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2022 12:06 PM To: Max Herman via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] nota bene
Hi - I wonder if looking at Sanskrit might help here? There's a number of extremely old texts on both music and dramaturgy that might offer some information. This is fascinating - Thanks, Alan On Sun, 30 Jan 2022, Max Herman via NetBehaviour wrote: > Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2022 17:43:46 +0000 > From: Max Herman via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> > To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity > <netbehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> > Cc: Max Herman <maxnmher...@hotmail.com> > Subject: [NetBehaviour] nota bene > > > Hi all, > > Trying to learn a bit of Italian here and there to better understand > Leonardo, I looked up the etymology for "note" yesterday. > > Instant internet facts might not be true but it does appear to go back quite > clearly to the Latin nota: > > 'c. 1300, "a song, music, melody; instrumental music; a bird-song; a musical > note of a definite pitch," from Old French note and directly from Latin nota > "letter, character, note," originally "a mark, sign, means of recognition"' > -- > > the above being interesting as always and to many artists and writers of the > past I think. The following I did not know, continuing the above sentence: > > -- 'which traditionally has been connected to notus, past participle of > noscere "to come to know," but de Vaan reports this is "impossible," and > with no attractive alternative explanation, it is of unknown origin.' > > It seemed very odd to me that such a basic word as "note" or nota could be > of unknown origin. I can see why historically linguists might wish noscere > to be the origin, but it doesn't make much sense except perhaps as a > reflection of the observers' bias (since their profession is largely > premised on a definition of marks as knowledge). > > Last year I had become interested in the Italian word nodo, knot, which is > used often by Dante and of course appears visually in great profusion in > both medieval visual art (both Islamic and European) and Leonardo's works. > I had learned that nodo is from the same root as "net," the PIE root *ned-, > meaning "to bind, tie." This is the root of "nexus" and "connect" as well > as node, and of course "knot." > > "Note" is a significant concept in some ways because it relates music to > words and writing to speech. Could nota derive also from *ned-, given the > many similar derivations? > > I'm further reminded of a Shakespeare class I took once in which the > professor emphasized the Elizabethan pun on "nothing" and "noting" which > were both pronounced, apparently, "no-ting." I.e., the pun is "neither > noticing nor writing is a thing." Is knotting a thing? Much Ado About > Nothing is also much ado about coupling and "tying the knot." > > It seemed to me that nota could be another derivation from *ned-, to tie or > bind. Letters in script are kind of like knotted squiggles in many cases. > They "tie" a sound or shape (ah or A) to a word or a piece of a word. Is it > possible for linguists to have overlooked this? If examined and rejected, > was it done so accurately? If yes, is it still interesting or useful as a > flight of fancy -- notes as knots? > > Dante speculated in his non-fiction work Il Convivio (The Banquet) that > knots and knotting were the basis of all language and literature. He even > made a very charming visual diagram, quite possibly his own invention from > whole cloth, claiming that the word autore -- author -- derived from an > obscure, supposedly Latin term auieo, of questionable existence, formed by > drawing a knot-line through the vowels A, E, I, O, U, in the sequence first, > last, middle, second, fourth. This word purportedly was created to show how > authors knot together the vowels, which in turn knot together the consonants > into words, thence into sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books. It's a > marvelous, and marvelously modern, bit of literary theater so to speak which > even prefigures aspects of Shakespeare's forays into modernity. > > Leonardo proposed an analogous idea that line, by means of a finger-touch on > a cave-wall, was the root of all writing, numbers, visual art, techne, and > math, since all of the symbols and images were ultimately made from lines > and squiggles. > > Despite Dante's auieo being almost certainly an imagination of his own > making it does seem very plausible to me that nota derives from the same > origin as nodo. What ties together a net but nodes of knots? What are > notes if not knots in a net? The visual reality of this, or potential > reality, seems best illustrated by ornate knot-works such as Leonardo's Sala > delle Asse (a trompe l'oeil ceiling of intricately interwoven tree-branches > mentioned here onlist if I recall), many of his images of garments and > fabrics, knot-designs for the Academia Leonardo Vici, and innumerable shapes > both abstract and non- in his notebooks, as well as vast realms of other > medieval, renaissance, and ancient knot images and geometry. > > My sense is that this is so obvious, even trite, that it must have been > looked into already ad nauseum, so I don't want to present it as necessarily > new. If it is, that strikes me as very odd which is neither here nor there > perhaps. If trite and utterly debunked, is there any chance of revitalizing > it in the context of say string theory? Knot theory is also still a live > question in various fields. I'm continuing to research and will report if I > find anything interesting. > > One last tangent: Leonardo's father and grandfather (the latter raised him > as an acknowledged but illegitimate offspring of the former) were notaries, > plural notai, singular notaio or notaia, who were kind of the attorneys of > the time who used special language to create binding contracts. Any > connection to nodo or *ned- aside, are these not nodes and nets, ties and > bindings, with undeniably contemporary descendants? > > All best, > > Max > > > >
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