Hi John,

Lots of fun in the twists and turns of this thread!

And I suspect that even when these work songs were first labeled as "chants" that this was a word/category that was not indigenous to the realm of sea labor. It almost sounds like something from a liturgical context!

I've not pursued it very far, by my attempt at sorting the term might include investigating the term "chaunt". See this thread for what I mean:

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=125224#2771310