Hugill in Shanties From The Seven Seas discusses 6 theories on the origin of the word shanty, which can be roughly summarised as:


1. From West-Indian clinker-build huts called shanties which were moved on rollers by men hauling, a man on top of the house - the shantyman - singing a shanty-type song to help.

2. From the drinking dens - shanties - of Mobile and other Gulf ports. The name then being applied to the songs of the work-songs of the cotton-stowers and thence copied by the seamen.

3. From the boat songs of the old French voyageurs of the New World, called chansons.

4. From the French chantez either by way of Norman French, Modern French or the French dialect of New Orleans.

5. From the English chant/chaunt

6. From the songs of the lumbermen, which often start with "Come all ye brave shanty-boys".

His opinions were:

"I am rather inclined to believe that theory 1 has much in its favour, but it it, I'm afraid, rather difficult to prove.
Theory 3 I feel has little to support it - the only shanty that may have stemmed from the voyageurs is Shenandoah. Theories 2, 4, and 5 have some stronger claims perhaps, but No 2 is rather weak. Quite possibly Theory 5 is the right one - that 'shanty' came from the Old English word 'chant', with modified sound as the usage of the word grew. Or perhaps again all these theories are wrong and, like C.F.Smith says, the word 'just growed'! Whatever is the secret of the origin of the word I'm afraid it is lost for all time and we must take it as it stands".

He also has a section on the earliest uses of the word (shanty/chantey) and says (roughly) that the word not used for sailors' work songs prior to the middle/late1840s.

(All this apart from OED's apparently representing Fr. chantez)

Mick