I'm honored to be published in the same journal as you, Lighter! My inspiration for seeking the journal was that Lyman article/note published in it in the 50s.

For those reading along, I don't claim to tell the "origin" of the word chanty, but rather investigate its known development to learn certain things about it and the chanty genre.

The two things that I think are my main contributions:

1. Establishing, pretty firmly I think, that "ch" is the etymologically "correct" spelling. That doesn't mean whatsoever that one must spell it that way, just that *if* one is interested in spelling words in ways that do well to preserve or reveal their origins, then "ch" is the best choice.

2. Argument that the term "chantyman" preceded the term "chanty." Instead of seeking the origin of the term "chanty" directly and assuming "chantyman" is its derivative, I argue that one might be better off seeking the origin of "chantyman." This speaks to the "issue" of the "y"; I think one would tend to get different results if one followed a path to explore an explanation for the y in chantyman versus doing the same for chanty.
The antecedent (though not the origin per se) of chanty, I argue, is chant. Not much of a revelation, but rather an effort to decrease the likelihood of other proposed derivations.