Shanty or Chantey?

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 03 Jul 23 - 12:19 PM

One obvious observation from Gibb's last February list of references must surely be, whilst in my mind the derivation of chanty is simple and obvious, by the time these comments were being expressed the English word 'chant' with the hard 'ch' is seen as quite separate from 'chanty' pronounced 'sh'. Those who are using the word 'chant' were describing in their minds something with barely a tune but repeated phrases, comparable with perhaps a 'Gregorian chant' and when recognising an actual regular tune being used the description was 'song' or 'chanty'. At least worth some discussion for those unsure.

If nothing else we can perhaps agree that 'shanty' is simply a phonetic spelling of 'chanty'/'chantey' or am I wrong?

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 01 Jul 23 - 08:50 PM

Found an early spelling. Musical but not nautical:

“Chanson
Composée à Langres contre les habitants de Chaumont en Bassigny.

...Ay Chaumont, ay la saint Jean
Lay musique ç'ay du pien chant.
Stu, que fait la basse, est obligey
        Pou grossi sa veix.
        Et pou mieux chantey
To lé jo d' s'alley baigney.

GLOSSAIRE
Chantey. –– Chanter.”
[Collection des Poètes de Champagne Antérieurs au 16. Siècle, Vols.14-15, 1851]
[Recherches sur l'histoire du Langage et des Patois de Champagne, Vol.14, Tarbe, 1851]

Anybody here fluent in patois de Champagne?

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 05:50 AM

Bedpan? In our house it was a potty, or, if you wanted to be posh, a pot de nuit, or just "the po." Always a lovely porcelain thing with a nice handle. You obviously had to get out of bed. I was glad of it because our outside toilet was infested with huge tarantulas lurking menacingly behind the long pipe which came down from the very high-up cistern. In my febrile childish imagination, of course. The only way you could flush that lav was to grab the chain and "take it by surprise."

Sorry - back to the fray...

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 04:05 AM

I stopped the above list at an arbitrary point. Will continue it a little further.

Also should be sure to add in the recently mentioned:

1837
the chanting man of the crew

Nordhoff 1856
chants, chanting, chanty-man

Abbe manuscript 1859
Shantie, Shanties

Nordhoff 1867
chants, chanting, chanting-man, chaunty-man


(list cont.)

1884
As the stranger approaches the river, a strange chorus greets his ear:

"Ro! ro! ro! ro! around the corner, Sally !" chant the voices; and another chorus strikes out with admirable effect,—

Nancy Bohannan, she married a barber;
Shave her away! shave her away!... The singers are black stevedores...

1884
When complete the noble steed is put on a box, covered with a rug, and on the evening of the last day of the month a man gets on to his back, and is drawn all round the ship by his shipmates, to the chanting of the following doggerel:—
    BURYING THE DEAD HORSE.

1885
Occasionally we hear some of the familiar chants, but “ Ranzo,” “ Haul Away, Joe,” and “Knock-a-man-down,” rarely animate the sailor in this period of maritime degeneracy.
...The sea-songs of Dibdin and others were really made for landsmen, and are different from the sailors' chants proper, which were of other material; like their working toggery, expressive and matter-of-fact. Prosody received but scant consideration, but the rhymes were a sort of rugged doggerel, with a refrain strongly accentuated, which served as a signal for all to pull away together. They were called Shanty songs, from the French word chanter, to sing, and many of them are familiar, having been incorporated in magazine articles and published in books.
...One of the sailors aboard the Montauk, who has been in the West Indies, furnishes the following example of a Shanty song, which is evidently the composition of some one possessed of a better ear for rhythm than the ordinary chanteur, as the measure is reasonably accurate.

1885
There was plenty for me to do without thinking of sentiment; yet, sweating and breathless as I was, I had time to feel sad when the shanty-man struck up, “Away down Rio.” The chorus goes:

Then away, love, away,
Away down Rio.
O, fare you well, my pretty young girl,
We're bound for the Rio Grande.

We were giving her the weight of the topsails, and all the fellows were roaring hard at the shanty, when I saw what I wanted to see.

1886
Years ago, when the (little) Great Western was fighting an almost solitary battle of steam versus sail power upon the Atlantic, the old Black X sailing liners were notable for their musical crews; and capstan songs, as they were called, always came rolling aft from a liner's forecastle...

1887
These black rowers then started a chant, of a more Anglican than Gregorian tone, the music of which was prettier than the words, though this is not high praise, the words being:

Oh, I wish I was in Mobile Bay—
   Sally, get round the corner;

c.1887
Sailor Songs or ‘Chanties’

1887
The boat, by the by, was that belonging to the Congo Free State factory, and the “Kruboys” who manned her, dressed in neat uniforms, pulled steadily and in good time, to the tune of “One more river to cross!” This air is known to them as “Stanley song” —they or their predecessors having learnt it from Bula Matadi himself, as a “chantee,” when hauling the steamers overland between Vivi and Isanghila.

1888
THERE are two kinds of sea-songs: those which are sung at concerts and in drawing-rooms, and sometimes, but not very often, at sea, and those which are never heard off shipboard. The latter have obtained in this age the name of 'chanty,' a term which I do not recollect ever having heard when I was following the life. It is obviously manufactured out of the French verb, and there is a 'longshore twang about it which cannot but sound disagreeably to the elderly nautical ear.

1888
Accustomed to the comparative independence and free life of a merchant-vessel, they look with scorn on the binding discipline and severe penalties of a man-o'-war, and laugh contemptuously as they watch the crew in uniform dress walk round the windlass, and weigh anchor like mechanical dummies:—...No hearty chanties there—no fine chorus ringing with feeling and sentiment, brought out with the sort of despairing wildness, which so often strikes neighbouring landsfolk with the deepest emotion.
...In it the heavier work is done by each man doing his utmost at the same moment. This is regulated by the “Chanty,” and here is the true singing of the deep sea—it is not recreation, it is an essential part of the work.
...A writer in the St. James's Gazette of December 6th, 1884, says: “The beau-ideal chanty-man has been relegated to the past. His death-knell was the shriek of the steam-whistle, and the thump of the engines. When he flourished British ships were manned by British seamen, and carried much stronger crews in proportion to their tonnage than their successors. In those days gipsywinches, patent windlasses and capstans, had no existence, and the heaving and hauling had to be performed by manual strength and labour; and to make the work 'go' lighter, the chanty-man chanted his strange lays, while the tars with hearty good-will joined in the refrains and choruses. ...
... Old tars tell us that the chanties are not what they were before steam became so universal:
...There are several kinds of chanty, though I believe, properly speaking, they should only be divided into two classes, namely, those sung at the capstan and those sung when hauling on a rope... [ETC, similarly]
...Much care was evidently given to “Lowlands” by the chanty-men.

1888
You may also still hear, sometimes as a forecastle song, but more often adapted, in time and metre, as a Chanty, a song which was popular in Captain Marryat's time:
Now, farewell to you, ye fine Spanish ladies,
...It is song that puts spirit and “go,” into all their work, and it is often said at sea that a good “Chanty-man” is equal to an extra hand. The chanties, or working songs, are the real sea songs of sea life. It may be that they are going gradually out of use nowadays, when so much is done by steam; but, wherever the concentrated strength of human muscles is needed, even on a steamship, there is nothing like a chanty for evoking the utmost motive power.
...Chanties are of various kinds, adapted to the different varieties of work on shipboard, and without a chanty a crew is as listless as a gang of South Carolina darkies without their plantation songs. In truth, there is a good deal in common between the working songs of sailors and of niggers, and it is curious that many of the most popular sea-chanties are wholesale adaptations of plantation airs, and often of the words also.

1888
And, whether to accompany the "slip-slap" of the windlass as the anchor of the homeward-bound ship comes up from foreign soil or to inspirit all hands when, in a gale of wind, they mast-head the topsail yard or set to work at the halyards, the inevitable "shanty" is yelled out at the top of strong and vigorous lungs.
Song lightens labor and has always been one of the sailor's most potent helpmeets. It is asserted that there is less singing among American sailors than with those of other nationalities, but be this as it may the American sailor has his own share of "shanties" and scraps of sentimental doggerel.

1889
Shantee or Chanty.—Whence comes the term "Shantee" or "Chanty," as applied to the songs of sailors?
...Possibly from the French verb chanter, to sing.

1889
In fact, there are two distinct sorts of sailors' songs, compositions of which only a very few indeed are sung by sailors, and compositions which nobody but sailors ever dream of singing. These last are well worthy of brief consideration. Some reckless modern has hurled the execrable term “chanty” at them, and the word, I am sorry to say, has stuck. I suppose the etymology of it must be sought in the French verb chanter. The “chanty,” as it is now the custom to call it—pronounced “shanty,” I believe, but I am very unwilling to have anything to do with it—is the modern generic appellation of the mariner's working song or chorus.
...A new song will sometimes be as good as a couple of new men to a ship's forecastle; hence in the merchant service sailors' songs, in the strict sense of the expression, are of incalculable value. To be sure in these days steam and patent machinery have diminished something of the obligation of these chants.
...I remember a lady writing to ask me to assist her in forming a collection of the sailors' working songs, and I could not help thinking that if by Jack's songs she meant the “chanties,” as they are now called, she would be starting on a quest which I might expect to hear in a very little time she had relinquished with a hot face and a shocked heart.

1889
For the first six weeks all the “shanty songs” known on the sea had been sung.

1890
Shanty… (Nautical), a song.
It was a tough pull, as the shark was over fifteen feet in length, until the mate suggested a shanty, or sea-song, a corruption of the French word chanter, which a fo'cs'le Mario commenced, and the rest joined in vigorous chorus.

1890
For it is not so much the sense, but the sound principally that influences the men in their choice of a “Chanty." These songs are not without a certain beauty of their own, especially when sung to the accompaniment of the tempest and the boom of the flopping sail. They are usually the genuine compositions of sailors, and are frequently improvized in part, at least. The melodies are recitatives, which are sung by the best and usually the loudest voice, while the chorus is taken up by all, suiting the labor to the rythm. The are of various kinds, some being adapted to the monotonous clank of the Windlass or pump-brake, others suited to the quick pulls at topsail halliards or main sheet. ...Some captains say a good chanty is worth an extra hand.

1890
Yankee seamen (almost an extinct race now) were then noted for their capstan chants,

1890
...and so the same “chantey,” as the windlass or halyard chorus is called, furnishes the music to as many various indignant remonstrances as Jack can find injuries to sing about.

1890
There is one kind of "fore-bitter," which I think is very much in vogue in the Merchant Service. I think it is called "Shanties," or some such name. It is, however, totally distinct from the old man-of-warsman “fore-bitter." The one I made allusion to was essentially one belonging to the Royal Navy at that time. I don't think I know of any published "fore-bitter," either in words or tune.

1892
However, I will not here assert that the Americans have taught us any particular lesson in the direction of forecastle fare. They invented the double topsail yards ; they invented the “chanty,” the inspiring choruses of the windlass and the capstan, such hurricane airs as “Across the Western Ocean,” “ Run, Let the Bulljine Run!” “ Shanadoah,” “ Old Stormy,” “ Bully in the Alley,” “ Cheerily, Men !” and scores besides;

1892
A year later Dr. Nekle brought to camp a shanty song of more than usual merit, "Rolling Down from Old Mohee," which has since been forgotten, though deserving of preservation.

1892
The loading was done by the canoeists, all hands turning to, the boats and heavy stuff going aboard to the good old shanty, "Heave away, my bully boys..."


1893
The unavoidable flour-barrels came head foremost along a wooden slide this time and a darky on the boat sang an incessant line, "Somebody told me so," as a warning to the men below that another and another barrel was coming. They are fond of chanting at their work, and they give vent to whatever comes into their heads, and then repeat it thousands of times, perhaps. It is not always a pretty sentence, but every such refrain serves to time their movements. "O Lord God! you know you done wrong," I have heard a negro say with each bag that was handed to him to lift upon a pile. "Been a slave all yo' days; you 'ain't got a penny saved," was another refrain: and still another, chanted incessantly, was: "Who's been here since I's been gone? Big buck nigger with a derby on."
...These roustabouts…Though they chant at their work, I seldom saw them laugh or heard them sing a song, or knew one of them to dance during the voyage.

1893
We furled the sails, and then rigged the tackles to hoist the longboat, as she was large and heavy. When everything was ready, the mate sang out, 'Hoist away!" As the tackles were drawn taut, the men called to Stanwood: "Give a shanter, old boy ! " And he sang the following hoisting song, which was chorused by the men:

1893
It was now to be forced into the ship, in the process of stowing by the stevedores, with very powerful jackscrews, each operated by a gang of four men, one of them the “shantier,” as he was called, from the French word chanteur, a vocalist.

1894
IT WAS the intention to give in this edition of "Maritime Melodies" a number of chanties, but without the music, the action and the very spirit of the sea, words are feeble.
The "Chanty," a corruption of the French verb to sing, came from New Orleans, where the French darkies made up songs to suit the occasion as they loaded the Yankee clipper ships with cotton. The Yankee sailor in turn "caught on" and calling their songs "Shanties," made rhymes and fitted them to music that assisted in heaving anchor, setting and furling sails, pumping out the ship, etc. And now the "motif" is explained.
...With the ship, the American sailor has also disappeared. But the Shanty remains. Listen. The fine 100 AI British ship California, a good ship with a good name, but flying the flag of Great Britain, instead of the Stars and Stripes, officered and manned by lusty Britons, good fellows all, but unfortunate in not being born here: The fine ship California is leaving the State for w hich she is named, and on the order to heave up anchor, the Chanty man starts in:

1894
What a picture they made as they swung together at the topsail halyards, their eyes gleaming, with open, thirsty mouths shouting the old shantie, 'Whis—ky John — nie.
...As we pump, the chantie (pronounced shanty) man trolls out some old sea song, and after each line all hands join in the refrain. Some of our men have a large stock of these songs.
...Think of this very slowly chanted, in time to the clank of the pump,
...When I heard an unfamiliar song being chanted this afternoon, I went forward and found the men hauling on two lines that led down to the focsle-hatch...As the hatch is very steep, they had some difficulty in hauling up the horse and its rider properly and in time to the chant. ...Round the deck they went singing 'The Old Horse,' chanting the time-honoured song with all solemnity, making the old horse plunge at times, for they had to pull it along the deck in short jerks to keep time to the tune. ...Under the foreyard the procession halted, and a running bowline was dropped over the horse's head, and Braidy got off, and to a second mournful chant it was hauled up to the yard's-arm.
...Now a chantie is started as the crew haul on the main topsail halyards.
...Chantie man: Ran-zo was a tailor,

1894
As the sailors’ chanties were used to lighten the labor of hauling and heaving before the days of the steam winch and the patent capstan, so were the harvesters’ songs required to help the reapers…

1894
The galley fires were started and coffee was made and served out, reinforced by cigars and cigarrettes from the wine mess stores. The men kept at their work singing cheerily a number of 'Shantee' songs,

1895
The reader said that "Sailors' Chanties" belonged to a time now no more...The "Chanty-man," the chorister of the old packet ship, has left no successors. In the place of rousing "pulling songs" we now hear the rattle of the steam-winch, and the steamwinch or pump give us the rattle of cog-wheels or the hiss of steam instead of the wild choruses of other days.

1895
Charteris quotes Henry Ward Beecher as relating how "many years after his first voyage across the Atlantic, he heard some sailors in a Brooklyn dock singing the same old 'chanty song' that he had heard when ill at sea, and that the mere listening to it produced the creepy feeling of seasickness;"

1896
Sailors' shanties—probably a corruption of chanting—or hauling choruses, not songs, are generally improvised by the “shantie man” who gives them out. The choruses are old and well known to all sailors, but between each pull and chorus the “ shantie man” has to improvise the next line, or compose the “shantie” as he sings it.

1896
The greyness had eaten into us, and the clank of the pump brakes, watch in, watch out, took the place of the cheery, shanty song.

1896
'Bunting topsils' is accompanied by a wild chant, the origin of which is lost in obscurity.
...When in roughest weather storm-stay-sails are hoisted, and short, heavy pulls are needed, they are given to the following curious and very ancient chantie...

1897
As soon as it was dark the fun began. One of the crew dressed as a jockey mounted the horse, and the two were pushed along the main deck in little jerks, followed by the whole crew in a long procession, singing the following doggrel in a slow chanting fashion:

1898
Shanty Songs. Songs sung by sailors at work, to ensure united action. They are in sets, each of which has a different cadence adapted to the work in hand. Thus, in sheeting topsails, weighing anchor, etc., one of the most popular of the shanty songs runs thus :—
...(French, chanter, to sing; a sing-song.)

1898
He was a favourite amongst the seamen on account of his simplicity and good nature, and also because he had a fund of French songs, some of which the rough fellows had turned into chantys or hauling choruses,...

1898
The hauling-song began something like this: "Way-ho!" (jerk), "Way-ho-hu!" (jerk), "O-le-obo-ho!" (jerk), increasing in sound, volume, and power as it progressed; then running into a wordless chant,—a vowel song,—which, with a pulling emphasis, and a melody as weird as a Gaelic psalm-tune, rose and fell like the song of the shrouds when the wind pipes strong.
...The gangway was withdrawn, the lines cast off, the order given to "Heave away on your capstan!" and we hauled slowly through the gates to the tune of the favorite outward-bound chantey:

1898
... besides, he did not have a “shanteeman," a necessity in a boat of negroes but a man who will not paddle with any unnecessary force.

1899
The work is always accompanied by a song called a "shantey" (probably from the French word chanter, to sing).
...Some of the “shanteys" are very musical, but the words are generally absurd.
...The "shanteyman," however, drawled out clear enough, in spite of the howling of the wind—

1899
Streaming with sweat, throwing their bodies about in sheer wantonness of exuberant strength as they hoisted the stuff out of the hold, they sometimes grew so excited by the improvisations of the "chantey man," who sat on the corner of the hatch solely employed in leading the singing, that often, while for a minute awaiting the next hoist, they would fling themselves into fantastic contortions, keeping time to the music.
...Then, to a grunting chantey, the screw was extended to its full length, and another bale inserted.

1899
"'Old on, ye bloody Yank! Hif ye don't like me bloody chanty, then just ye sing us a bloody chanty as ye do like."

1900
Much of the picturesqueness of the old steamboat life on the Mississippi was provided by the negro roustabouts. Their quaint songs and chanties and their good-natured pranks did much to enliven a journey which might otherwise have become monotonous.

1900
Aboardship these songs are known by the name of "chanties"—which is, in all probability, either a sailor's pluralising of our word "chant," or a corruption of the French "chanson."
..."A song, boys, a song! Come, isn't there a 'chanty-man' in the crowd?" In response a negro—he being of a livelier temperament than his white shipmates, despite the fitting melancholy air of his farewell—begins:— We're on the plains of Mexico...

1900 continues

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Gallus Moll
Date: 25 Feb 23 - 03:25 PM

A 'chanty/chantey' is a bedpan, or an item kept under the bed in which to micturate during the night! (back in the day when the toilet was downstairs - or even outside the house altogether!)

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Feb 23 - 03:35 AM

Life is too short to read that long long list.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 02:33 PM

Impressive list Gibb. More grist for the word list.

RE: Gulf coast Creole. I was not offering it up as anything other than our maritime lingua franca answer to Steve's question. Popular fiction authors are free to invent words out of thin air and The Beverly Hillbillies weren't Appalachian.

Lucky for us chantier is just a noun.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 01:55 PM

Wow! That's some list, Gibb.

Just an observation or suggestion which I'm sure you consider already. Almost all of the earlier extracts are by English-speaking 'writers'/'observers using a well-used word in their own vocabulary with the 'church' sound, whereas the few French extracts would surely be using 'shush'. Is there any significant difference in the meaning of chaunt and chant, or are they synonymous?

Another aspect I haven't seen discussed is the use of the vowel sounds as in French 'shontay'. If the sailor/stevedore usage did derive in some way from the French would the earlier pronunciation have reflected this?

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 01:32 PM

It looks as though Louisiana French - like other dialects - lacks a voiceless palato-alveolar affricate.

Such speakers would naturally articulate English "chanty" as "shanty."

Spanish, another major Gulf language, does have the "church" sound. So there's no influence from Spanish.

I don't know what the ch/sh distribution might have been in any Afro-English creole that might have been spoken around the Gulf of Mexico.

It's hard to understand why English "ch" should become "sh" without some foreign influence.

In any case, it's hard for me to believe that the *dominant* pronunciation should change from "chanty" to "shanty" in just few years.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 08:06 AM

The start of lining out some documentation, not of this whole subject but related to recent questions: (I'm not going to give full references and contextualize everything)

1806
Where Scotland's kings are laid; of Lewis, Sky,
And of the mainland mountain circled lochs;
And he would sing the rowers timing chaunt,...

1818
The reapers had their carol; the herdsmen had a song, which an ox-driver of Sicily had composed; the kneuders, and the bakers, and the galley-rowers, were not without their chaunt.

1825 (and similar French references):

BOULINA-HA-HA ! Arrache ! Boulina-ha-ha, déralingue ! etc. Ancien chant des matelots français pendant qu'ils bâient sur les quatre principales boulines , notamment celle du grand et du petit hunier. Ce chant est si ridicule que plusieurs capitaines militaires le défendent.

HISSA, O, HA , HISSE: chant de l'homme qui donne la voix pour réunir les efforts de plusieurs autres sur un même cordage afin de produire un plus grand effet. Ce chant ou cri n'a plus guère lieu que dans quelques ports.

1826
He was principally applauded for singing a common sailors' chant in character, having a sort of 'Sally Brown, oh, ho,' chorus; and requiring the action of pulling a rope, spitting upon the hand, and the accompaniment of a horrid yell.

1829
Our visitors were particularly animated in their extemporaneous effusions, and ran round the capstan rapidly, to words signifying their hope of soon sharing an allowance of spirits; ...The limit of the choral expression is always marked by the velocity with which the leader of the band, that is, the individual who first gives out the stave, completes a circle on the deck as he heaves round his bar, and he recommences his chant at the same spot at which it was begun. Hence, when the circumvolutions of the performers are quickened by the yielding of the ... No sooner had they got the ship under weigh, and felt her yield to the impulse of their warp, as if she gradually awoke from a deep lethargy, and slowly resumed her suspended faculty of motion, than they began their song, one of them striking up, seemingly with the first idea that entered his imagination, while the others caught at his words, and repeated them to a kind of Chinese melody; the whole at length uniting their voices into one chant, which, though evidently the outpouring of a jovial spirit, had, from its unvaried tone and constant echo of the same expression, a half-wild, half-melancholy effect upon the ear.

1831
It was the rude chaunt of some negroes returning down the river to their master's plantation, and beguiling the toil of their oars with a wild yet rich and well harmonized chorus.

1833
Every ship of war on arriving at Freetown, enters certain number of these Kroumen over and above her compliment, for the purpose of manning her boats when the may be sent on any service where there is likely to be much exposure to the sun or rain, and to the mephitic exhalation from the soil, such as weeding and watering so that our unassimilated seamen may be subjected as little as possible to the deleterious influence of the climate.
We received upwards of twenty of them on board, chiefly young men, all of them more muscular and athletic, though not generally taller, than our own people;…

In rowing, they have always a song of some sort or other at command, to which they keep time with the oar, someimes melodious, but usually harsh and untuneful, having generally for its subject something connected with the ship, or the officers, or the duty that is going on, each chanting a subject in turn, while the rest join in the chorus.

1834
Here is a song, or rather a chorus, which the negroes sing on such occasions, being a fair sample of their poetry and'music; kept up, perhaps, by a few of them working together, whilst the others at the same time sing some popular English tune, recently imported, forming together, something like that delectable compound of harmony and discord, a "Dutch Medley."

Shatteraynite aw cung la town
Chaun fine my deary hunney.
Aw run roun da lemon tree,
Chaun fine my deary hunney. [ETC]

1835
The hoarse panting of the high-pressure engines, the rattling of the drays on the paved wharfs, and the discordant cries in every tongue mingling with the song of the negro boatmen, as their wild chaunt on coming into port would rise ever and anon above the general din, made a confusion of sights and sounds that was bewildering.

1835
I now passed the estate belonging to Monsieur Honnemaison: the field-gang were cutting canes, and the muleteers loading their animals,—all were chaunting a short song. Negro songs are always short; it was what on French estates is called a "belle air," a kind of Creole chaunt, almost agreeable enough to merit its appellation.

1838
Ohio RIVER, 1838.-—-This morning we took on board a lot of very dry wood. and the negro firemen, as is usual, when they get good wood, and can make their furnaces hot, begin to sing, one of them chanting the burden of a song, and the rest, at the end of every two lines, striking in, by way of chorus. The whole was improvisatored for the occasion ; and it is remarkable what skill an African Orpheus of this class will exhibit in composing his extemporaneous song.

1839
Suddenly, on a signal from their spokesman, the negroes struck up a song, to which they kept time with their oars. The leading songster sang a line solo, taking up any occurrence that crossed his mind at the moment, or that took place in our progress. Thus, when the looms of the oars were thrown aft to replunge the blade in the water, the leader sang his line, whatever it might be, and as they one and all took their stroke together, every voice united in a general chorus. ... The boatmen could hear very little if any thing of our conversation; but seeing us earnestly engaged, they ceased their chaunt...
...…I was going to inquire who Hammerton was, but the question was delayed by the peculiar mournful cadences of the negroes as they continued their chaunt.
..."Massa Hammerton like for hearee we peaka too much sorry," answered Sam, the leader of the chaunt.
“Go, massa, go," continued the negro; "you no top longer; Golamity bless Massa Mitchell; go den quick, and no let em boys sing em chant hearee, spose you please."

1839
“THE STOKER'S CHAUNT.
The ebben tide ib floating past,
Fire down below!
The arrival time ib coming fast.
Fire down below!

1841
On either hand the posthumous fame of Fulton ascends with the spiral wreaths of smoke, that like dusky serpents curl from the funnels of the numerous steamers that ply to and fro upon the bay and river, while the "yo, heave ho," of the mariners, the monotonous chant of the stevedores, the measured stroke of the skilfully plied oars of the waterman, the "clinking hammers" of the ship-yards, the hurried shouts of the officers of vessels and the answering response of their crews, the rattling of iron cables, the creaking of swayed masts, and the flutter of shivering sails are the whisperings of the modern Babel, falling on the ear of the loiterer at Williamsburgh, in her seasons of repose.

1842
But if these chaunts have not much meaning, they will not produce the desired effect of touching the heart, as well as animating the arm of the labourer. The gondoliers of Venice while away their long midnight hours on the water, with the stanzas of Tasso; our sailors at Newcastle, in heaving their anchors, &c, use a song of this kind.

1842
SHANTY SONG.

TO A NEW AND APPROPRIATE AIR.

We leave all is dear, at the falling year, ?
'Fore the bleak snows come and the frosts appear, ?
O'er the wide lakes we creep, ?
Rocked by the billows sleep, ?
And through the rough rapids wc boldly steer. ?      
Then row, brothers row, ?      
Let the rude winds blow, ?
Shove the canoe like ranting boys, ?      
With liquor and good cheer, ?   
And none an heart to fear. ?
Merry be the woodland shanting boys.

To dangers we go, where the snow storms blow, ?
And the ice-bound rivers cease to flow,
Where the axe with the sound,
        In the valleys resound, ?
As we chaunt to the woodlands, row boys, row, ?      
Then row brothers, row, &c. &c. &c.

1843
Great masses of idle people were standing contemplating our arrival, the vessels teeming with negroes, oddly attired, were at work rolling cargoes in and out, and accompanying their labour with a lively chaunt, both musical and strange.

1850
Nothing to break the calm silence of the scene, save the occasional chaunt of a negro band, who were engaged, at some distance, putting up the sails of a windmill, and whose chorus, rude and imperfectly heard as it was, sounded pleasantly in the ear...

1851
I am told that negroes, although living in "Old Virginny," never did, and never would, sing such songs as Old Dan Tucker and Lucy Neale, which only originated in the brains of their sham Ethiopian personifiers. The songs they do sing are almost always of a religious turn, something between a nautical anchor-hauling chaunt and the "Old Hundredth."

1854
The little bay looks active and busy with shipping; loading and unloading goes on merrily to the chanting of the sailors, which sound is borne pleasantly across the water with every little breath of wind;

1855
Gen'el Jackson fine de trail,
Whaw, my kingdom, flre away,
He full um fote wid cotton bale,
Whaw, my kingdom, fire away.” ...

The song, a part of which I have just quoted, is fresh from the sable mint in which it was coined. Its originality and genuineness every one familiar with plantation life will at once perceive; while some Georgians may even be able to point to the very river on which the dusky troubadours still chant it.

1856
Another man had, in the mean time, stepped into the place he had first occupied at the head of the grave; an old negro, with a very singularly distorted face, who raised a hymn, which soon became a confused chant—the leader singing a few words alone, and the company then either repeating them after him or making a response to them, in the manner of sailors heaving at the windlass.

1858
But the sail wouldn't come, though. All the most forcible expressions of the Commination-Service were liberally bestowed on the watch. “ Give us the song, men!” sang out the mate, at last,— “ pull with a will!—together, men!—haltogether now! “—And then a cracked, melancholy voice struck up this chant:

“Oh, the bowline, bully bully bowline,
Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!”

1859
and the barbaric African chant and chorus of the gang at work filling the cane-troughs ;—all these make the first visit at the sugar-house a strange experience. But after one or two visits, the monotony is as tiresome as the first view is exciting. There is, literally, no change in the work There are the same noises of the machines, the same cries from negroes at the same spots, the same intensely sweet smell, the same state of the work in all its stages, at whatever hour you visit it, whether in the morning, or evening, at midnight, or at the dawn of the day. If you wake up at night, you hear the “A-a-b'la A-a-b'la!” “E-e-cha! E-e-cha!” of the caldron-men crying to the stokers, and the high, monotonous chant of the gangs filling the wagons or the trough, a short, improvisated stave, and then the chorus;—not a tune, like the song of sailors at the tackles and falls but a barbaric, tuneless intonation.

1861
They are the product chiefly of the enterprising capitalists termed lumber-men,' and of the men and their woodmen, whose French name is "Gens de Chantier," from that habit of singing as they ply their task which was made known to our people by Moore's Canadian Boat-song." Their log-houses are called chantiers, whence the English shanty, and shanty-men.

1863
…and as the boat pushed off, and the steersman took her into the stream, the men at the oars set up a chorus, which they continued to chant in unison with each other, and in time with their stroke, till the voices and oars were heard no more from the distance. I believe I have mentioned to you before the peculiar characteristics of this veritable negro minstrelsy—how they all sing in unison, having never, it appears, attempted or heard any thing like part-singing.
... Except the extemporaneous chants in our honor, of which I have written to you before, I have never heard the negroes on Mr. —'s plantation sing any words that could be said to have any sense.

1867
Down the rigging they leaped, and to the windlass brakes. Then as they felt the old emotion, that they were at every stroke of the brakes slowly parting their last hold on Yankee land, they broke forth in a chanting that made the sleepy crews of the numberless coasters turn out in quick time. “ O, Riley, O,” “Whiskey for my Johnny,” and the loud toned “Storm along, my Rosa,” woke the echoes far and near.
... The anchor came to the bow with the chanty of “Oh, Riley, Oh,” and “Carry me Long,” and the tug walked us toward the wharf at Brooklyn.
...Every man sprang to duty. The cheerful chanty was roared out, and heard above the howl of the gale.
...A chanty gang was engaged to hoist out the cargo, and one of them in trying to steal hard bread, finding the bull-dog upon him, jumped overboard and swam safely ashore.......
The chanty men wanted biscuit, and waited to receive them.
......when the sugar began to roll in, the crew found I was at the head of the rope, and a “chanty man.” We rolled the sugar upon the stages, over the bows, and at every hogshead I gave them a different song.

1868 - first (?) reference to French etymology
Man the capstan bars! Old Dave is our “chanty-man.”* Tune up, David!
... [footnote:] *Chanter (French), to sing.
...Dave is familiar with the songs of all nations, for he has sailed over all seas, and h’isted anchor in many ports. Perhaps he will “chanty” a favorite English capstan-song:—
...        And so “Dave,” the favorite “chanty-man,” in a rough, yet musical voice, and with that temulous quaver which expresses his idea of effective style, begins...
...By this time, usually, the mainsail is up, and the song concludes itself; but it sometimes happens that the huge sail lingers on its way, and more “chanty” is needed, in which case the song “suffers a sea-change.”

1868
Truly, as I once heard an old skipper remark, a good shanty is the best bar in the capstan ; but it is impossible to give an adequate idea of them by merely quoting the words : the charm all lies in the air : indeed, few of them have any set form of words, except in the chorus ; thus the inventive as well as the vocal powers of the singer are taxed—yet the shantyman has to extemporise as he sings to keep up his prestige...
... Shanties are of two kinds, those sung at the capstan, and those sung when hauling on the ropes ; in the former the meter is longer, and they are generally of the pathetic class.
...There is an air of romance about California, the Brazils, and Mexico, that has a peculiar charm for Jack, and has made them the subject of many a favourite shanty, as Rio Grande, Valparaiso, Round the Horn, and Santa Anna.
…In those lively shanties, Good morning ladies all, Nancy Bell, and Sally in the Alley, ample homage is paid to the girl he leaves behind him.
...There are many more capstan shanties,
...We now come to the hauling shanties: first, there is the hand over hand song, in very quick time; then the long pull song. When there are a number of men—perhaps twenty, or more— pulling on one rope, the reader will perceive that, to be effective, the pull must be made unanimously ; this is secured by the shanty, the pull being made at some particular word in the chorus.
...These remarks apply only to merchant ships ; in the Navy, the shanty is prohibited, and at the capstan the men move to the sound of the fife or fiddle—the musician being seated on the capstan-head.

1869
At the last word 'haul' in each couplet, every man threw his whole strength into the pull—all singing in chorus with a quick explosive sound. And so jump by jump the sheet was at last hauled taut I daresay this description will be considered spun out by a seafaring man; but landsmen like to hear of the sea and its ways; and as more fresh-water sailors read this Journal than sea-water ones, I have told them of one shanty and its time and place.
...The above is what we call a hauling shanty. Shanties are of two kinds—those sung at the capstan, and those sung when hauling on a rope
...There is an air of romance about California, the Brazils, and Mexico, that has a peculiar charm for Jack; and he has made them the subject of many a favourite shanty, as Rio Grande, Valparaiso, Round the Horn, and Santa Anna. Rio Grande is perhaps the greatest favourite of this description of songs, but all the beauty lies in the mournful air:
…There are many more capstan shanties...
...I remember once hearing a good shanty on board a Glasgow boat; something like the following was the chorus:
...We now come to the hauling shanties. First, there is the hand-over-hand song, in very quick time ; then the long-pull song. When there are a number of men—perhaps twenty or thirty—pulling on a rope, the reader will perceive that, to be effective, the pull must be made unanimously: this is secured by the shanty, the pull being made at some particular word in the chorus.

1870
At the bow of the boat were gathered the negro deck-hands, who were singing a parting song...The leader, a stalwart negro, stood upon the capstan shouting the solo part of the song, the words of which I could not make out, although I drew very near; but they were answered by his companions in stentorian tones at first, and then, as the refrain of the song fell into the lower part of the register, the response was changed into a sad chant in mournful minor key.

1870
Forty-eight hours after that we were off Sandy Hook with our jib-boom pointing toward the open sea, and all hands on the main topsail halliards, pulling away to the roaring chanty, —

1871
"There are large sugar cultivations on the mainland," writes Mr. Philpot from Abaco, "and the fields of waving cane, with their delicate green leaves and golden tassels, look very pretty, especially when they relieve a dark background of sombre pine-wood. A windmill crushes the cane, and when wind fails, manual labour is called in—a number of negroes turning the windlass to the wild chaunts of their own country."

1871
For example, when hauling on the topsail halyards, they may have this song, the shanty man, as they call him, solo singer, beginning with a wailing strain:
...Shanty man: “Haul the bowline; Kitty is my darling.
       Crew: Haul the bowline, the bowline haul!”

1874
Shanty, a song. A term in use among sailors. From CHANTER.

1874
The men seemed of my opinion, for they went forward singing merrily one of those peculiar ditties that sailors always affect, and which you hear nowhere but in the forecastle, or else from the chanty-man when all hands are employed together doing heavy work.
... "Way, haul away, haul away, my Jo!”

roared the gunner in stentorian voice, as he led off in a sonorous chanty...

1876
We were not a little amused whilst heaving round the windlass at seeing Mr H leaning over the bulwarks deplorably sick. Our putting back made the men strike up the wellknown homeward-bound “chanty”—
...We filled up with water and took aboard some fresh meat; and the wind having hauled round to N.E., with fine and clear weather, we weighed anchor to the tune of the “chanty,”—”I served my time in the Black Ball Line,”—
...Whilst heaving up anchor prior to the tug towing us to the wharf, we had some good “chanties”—for Jack's spirits are at their highest at the thoughts of a run ashore. The “chanty” known under the name of “ The Rio Grande” is particularly pretty...
...Merchant Jack laughs with contempt as he watches their crew in uniform dress, walking round the windlass, weighing anchor like mechanical dummies. No hearty “chanties” there—

1876
The morning finds us still a dozen miles from Asioot where we desire to celebrate Christmas; we just move with sails up, and the crew poling. The head-man chants a line or throws out a word, and the rest come in with a chorus, as they walk along, bending the shoulder to the pole. The leader—the "shanty man" the English sailors call their leader, from the French chanter I suppose—ejaculates a phrase, sometimes prolonging it, or dwelling on it with a variation, like "O ! Mohammed!" or "O! Howadji!" or some scraps from a love-song, and the men strike in in chorus:

1879
There’s half a dozen old “shanty songs” that are never heard on shore, sung by sailors at work. Such as “The Bully Boat’s a Coming,” “Santy Anna,” Miranza Lee,” “Storm along, John.” Take any of these chanted by a Blackball liner’s crew as they were making everything taut in the dog watch with top gallant sails set and a lively breeze humming through the rigging, and there’s music which would, with a little trimming and polishing, out-Pinafore “Pinafore.”

1879
And Short pretended to chanty a sailor's song. …

“An' away, my Johnny boy, we 're all bound to go!” …


1879
The majority of the men who volunteered for the Water Transport Corps, were, as may be imagined, those who had been used to a sea-faring life, and accustomed to boats and rowing. They were a rough-and-tumble lot, and many are the wild stories told of their escapades. The boats' crews (8 and 12 oars), used generally to sweep up against the stream to the chorus of a sailors shanty song, "I'm bound away," or "Ye rolling rivers," usurping the canoe chant of the natives.

1879
The men, who are now prevented from working about deck or aloft at their usual jobs, are only worked at tending the sails, and between orders stay under the lee of the forward house. ... Through all their hardships, and this weather is really very hard on them, they seem as cheerful as possible, and sing their queer monotonous songs with a vim when pulling on the ropes, where all hands, or a whole watch is needed. ... The song or "shantee" as they call it, and which is sung when a whole watch or more are hauling, consists in the leader singing a line, then all hands the chorus, which is only one line long, and at the same time giving two long steady pulls; as the leader chants the next line the men rest, then another chorus and pull, and so on until the yard is hoisted or the sail sheeted home.

1879
Every morning they were waked up by the song of the crew, as they commenced at five o'clock in the morning to hoist out the tobacco, for it is not customary in port to “ turn to “until six, and all day long such choruses as “Walk along my Sally Brown,” and “Hoist her up from down below,” rang over the harbor, with all the force that a dozen hearty negroes could give them. When the “shanty man“ became hoarse, another relieved him, and thus the song and work went along,...
...The shantyman, as the solo singer is called, standing up “beforehand,” as high above the rest of the crew as he can reach, sings with as many quirks, variations and quavers as his ingenuity and ability can attempt, “Haul the bow-line, Kitty is my darling;”
...Great latitude is allowed in the words and the shantyman exercises his own discretion. If he be a man of little comprehension or versatility, he will say the same words over and over, but if he possesses some wit, he will insert a phrase alluding to some peculiarity of the ship, or event of the time, which will cause mouths to open wider and eyes to roll gleefully, while a lively pull follows that rouses the sheet home and elicits the mate's order “Belay!” A good shantyman is highly prized, both by officers and crew. His leadership saves many a dry pull, and his vocal effort is believed to secure so much physical force, that he is sometimes allowed to spare his own exertions and reserve all his energies for the inspiriting shanty.
...A good shantyman, who with fitting pathos recounts the sorrows of “ poor Reuben “ never fails to send the topsail to the masthead at quick notice,...
...Of all the heroines of deck song Sally Brown's name is most frequently uttered, and a lively pull always attends it. She figures in several of these songs; one has as its chorus “Shantyman and Sally Brown.”
...Each line is usually repeated twice, even if there be a rhyme impending, for the shantyman's stock must be carefully husbanded.

1881
For the first six weeks all the "Shanti songs" known on the sea had been sung.

1882
Undoubtedly many sailor songs have a negro origin. They are the reminiscences of melodies sung by negroes stowing cotton in the holds of ships in Southern ports. The “shanty-men,” those hards of the forecastle, have preserved to some extent the meaningless words of negro choruses, and have modified the melodies so as to fit them for salt-water purposes.
...There are pulling songs which approach so closely the structure of windlass songs that they were sometimes made to do duty at the windlass or the pump by shanty-men whose artistic consciences were somewhat dull.
All sailor songs consist of one or more lines sung by the shanty-man alone, and one or two lines sung by the men in chorus. Windlass songs always have two choruses, while pulling songs should have but one. The choruses are invariable. They are the fixed and determinating quantities of each song, while the lines sung by the shanty-man were left in a measure to his discretion. It is true that custom wedded certain lines to certain songs, but the shanty-man was always at liberty to improvise at his own pleasure. He was also permitted to slightly vary the melody of his part, and the accomplished shanty-man was master of certain tricks of vocalization which can not be reproduced in print, but which contributed vastly to the effectiveness of his sinking. Those who have heard Irma Marie in Barbe Bleu may remember that in some of her songs, notably in the first act, she had a trick of slurring from a note in her proper register to another in her head voice. This was one of the favorite mannerisms of the shanty-man.
...Presently some one says, “Oh, give us the 'Bowline,'“ whereupon the shanty-man's sharp clear voice is heard, the men join in the chorus, and as they sing the last syllable they haul on the halyards, and the stubborn yard yields.
...This is clearly of negro origin, for the “Shanandore” is evidently the river Shenandoah. In course of time some shanty-man of limited geographical knowledge, not comprehending that the “Shanandore” was a river, but conceiving that the first chorus required explanation, changed the second chorus.
...Much care was evidently given to “Lowlands” by the shanty-men. It has often been improved. In its original form the first chorus was shorter and less striking, and the words of the second chorus were, “My dollar and a half a day.” It is to be regretted that no true idea can be given on paper of the wonderful shading which shanty-men of real genius sometimes gave to this song by their subtle and delicate variations of time and expression.
...Who Stormy was, and why he received that evident nickname, even the most profound and learned shanty-men always confessed themselves unable to explain.

1882
They always have a foreman, one of their own number, who directs their work and leads their song or chant. Sometimes he merely utters, in a high, sing-song tone, a constant succession of orders, to which the hands respond now and then as the work goes on; everything that is said is chanted, with a well-defined cadence and rhythm, often extremely musical and interesting: "Ready now! Give us light dar! What do yo' say now? All togedder dar!" and so on. Some of their songs or chants include queer, inarticulate shouts or cries and vocal explosions,

1883
“SHANTY SONGS”.
OLD STORM ALONG.
“CHANTY SONG.”
BLACK BALL. “CHANTY” SONG.

1883
But the lack of variety is no obstruction to the sailor's
poetical inspiration when he wants the “ old man” to know
his private opinions without expressing them to his face, and
so the same “chantey,” as the windlass or halliard chorus is
called, furnishes the music to as many various indignant
remonstrances as Jack can find injuries to sing about.

1883
'Then give us one of the old chanteys,' exclaimed my uncle. “Haul the Bowline,” or “Whiskey, Johnny,” or “ Run, let the Bulljine run.”

1884
The most popular of the sea songs are known
as “shanties.” Whether this is an original word
or is a corruption of “chants” it would be difficult
to say. Whenever the sailors heave up the
anchor, or man the pumps, or undertake some
difficult operation which requires the use of the
capstan they are apt to indulge in “shantying.”...
The “shantyer,” or soloist, chants one or two rude Iines and is followed by
his comrades in a brief chorus. In nearly all shanties there are two choruses, which are sung alternately.
...There are a number of songs which sailors sing while hauling on the ropes which are not called
shantys, but are in many respects similar to the latter. The soloist chants a line, and his comrades follow with a chorus, at the last word of which they give the rope a terrific tug. One of these songs is known as “Hanging Johnny.”
...When seamen furl one of the larger sails it requires their united efforts to roll the canvass
up on to the yard. For the final effort they stimulate themselves by a brief chant at the last word of which all pull together. In the selection of the two sets of words which Jack has set to this chant he has displayed his love of
honesty and truthfulness. One version of
the yard-arm chant is “Wea-hay-hay; we will pay Paddy Doyle for his boots.”
The composer of these words undoubtedly owed
a man named Patrick Doyle for a pair of boots,
and he took a public occasion for announcing
his intention of paying for them like an honest
man. The other version of the chant is “Wea-hay-hay; oh, my wife she's a devil for gin.”
...The shantyer's face invariably glows with enthusiasm
when he reaches this line,
...The following is a portion of one of
the most popular of the shanties:
...One or two land songs have of late years been
transformed Into shantys. “Marching Through
Georgia” is becoming a great favorite with Jack,
although the air of this does not compare with
those of several of his shantys. The song in
which a young man meets a pretty maid, who,
upon being cross-examined, informs him that her
face is her fortune, and in a very pert and forward
manner says: “Nobody asked you, Sir” when he announces his disinterested Intention of
marrying her, has, after some alterations and
renovations been transformed into a shanty,
with the following somewhat irrelevant chorus:
“I was bound for the Rio Grande.”
...There is however, one shanty the words of which were very appropriate. This is rarely sung except by the crew of some sinking vessel who are about to abandon her.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 06:08 AM

All we can say for sure is that the "shanty" pronunciation was in use by 1858. Nordhoff's is unclear.

What is unclear about Nordhoff? (*Playing Devil's advocate here.*)

It's technically true that the digraph /ch/ can be used to represent more than one sound. So, it's not 100% clear, but I guess "unclear" to me connotes more than "not 100%". I find no suggestion *in* Nordhoff that it should be read other than "church". There's good sense in thinking that if he presented it as /ch/ in such familiar English words as "chant" and "chanting" (which is especially English morphologically) that to suppose other than "church" is overthinking.

So why would *we* every suspect "shush"? I think it's only because we have learned to pronounced /chanty/ that way, through later writers and received pronunciation. On the other hand, /chant/ and /chanting/ are earlier (within the few decades prior to Nordhoff) in evidence in English-language reference to work-songs, both of sailors and non-sailor African American workers. I don't think we're talking about those things being pronounced as "shush". Why privilege what came after rather than what came before?

What makes Nordhoff notable in the historiography is that his is the "first" where /chanty/ (as opposed to /chant/, i.e. with a /y/) occurs, albeit embedded in /chanty-man/. Yet, I don't think that distinction is enough to treat it as a kind of ground-zero. Nordhoff is talking about the songs as /chants/, but we've already got earlier people talking about /chants/ with a similar meaning. I don't regard those others as unclear. Again, perhaps technically we can call them unclear, but I'm inclined to read them as typical English.

What to me is unclear is how Our Word was pronounced by everyone and in all places, and Nordhoff *contributes* to the overall lack of clarity, but that is something different than to say that Nordhoff was unclear.

Did not the earliest usage of the word occur in the Gulf Ports?

My interpretation is that "chantyman" (whatever spelling) was in use prior to "chanty" (whatever spelling) and that it was used by stevedores before sailors. At least, in use to a significantly greater degree. Some of those stevedores were in the Gulf ports. I theorize "chanty" being a "back derivation" from "chantyman". I'm happy to think of "chanty" as a simple diminutive form of "chant" as well, per Lighter. However, if I have to choose, I lean toward my theory for the reasons expressed in my article.

But I would not pinpoint /chant/ to either the Gulf ports or stevedores. Rather, those places seem important for /chantyman/ (from which, again I derive chanty—a later name for the thing earlier called chant). It's a subtle point, I guess.

French/Creole being a language of the Gulf ports, that offers some reasonable fodder for speculation (along with the complicated French and English mix in some Caribbean islands) about how the "shush" pronunciation got in there. In other words, its useful only insofar as we are grappling with "shush", for which I find an origin in Standard French to be less satisfying than either a Creole linguistic environment or some random sound shift within English.

(Scots "chantie" and French "Chantez!" via "shanty-man," or, more plausibly, English "chant" + "Chantez!")
I've never understood the /chantez!/ thing, nor the /chanter/ thing (though the latter may just be people wanting to state the verb infinitive as some kind of etymological formality?). I guess they are supposed to be accounting for the /y/ ending? Yet in French we already have the perfectly good word /chant/, which was used in French for work vocalization (and is used now as a gloss for chanties, "chants de marins"). And /chantie/ sounds to me like an equally plausible French diminution of /chant/. English /chant/ and French /chant/ are more or less equivalent.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 07:11 PM

Steve: What does race have to do the etymology?

Speaking just of Nordhoff, it is Nordhoff doing the writing. It is fiction. The only thing we really know for certain is that he learned of the word some time before he first went to print. We don't even know that Nordhoff ever heard the word spoken aloud in any accent. He may very well have read it somewhere.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 06:16 PM

'who is doing the talking'. Well that would be the stevedores and cotton-screwers initially, largely of African-American origin, where we get the first use of 'chantyman' and then the spread to shipboard. We're not actually looking at the practice itself here, just the evolution of the word. I'm going back earlier than Nordhoff. Sorry!

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 02:57 PM

Did not the earliest usage of the word occur in the Gulf Ports?
In popular fiction the "usage" would be where the author wrote, not the fictional setting(s.) For all you know, Nordhoff stole it from another work of fiction, whilst sitting by the fire, feet up, in his office, with snow on the windows.

Was not one of the commonest spoken languages in those places French?
Creole and the colonial Spanish & French it is taken from. Roughly in that order but who is doing the talking: quarterdeck, midships, foredeck or alongshore will make a huge difference... in any one given task. It would sound a lot like 'English' calypso or junkanoo to the average European Francophone. "Champagne" & "chanteur" &c might very well come with more of a "j" sound.

OTH: If one is shopping for music or instruments, one could expect to hear more German & Yiddish than Spanish.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 10:31 AM

It's a very minor point, Steve, but the question as I see it is where the "church"-style pronunciation came from.

Sheer ignorance or parallel tradition?

Nordhoff's spellings muddy the waters (see what I did there?).

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 10:06 AM

I'm obviously looking at this far too simplistically.

Did not the earliest usage of the word occur in the Gulf Ports?

Was not one of the commonest spoken languages in those places French?

Okay so none of us yet have absolute proof but until we do that's good enough for me. Enchantee!

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 09:53 AM

You're right. My eyes and/or brain must be going.

So, no German accent.

On Nov. 22, '09, when this discussion was getting underway (see what I did there?), I suggested that the "chantie" might have come from a hypothetical but perfectly natural Scots diminutive of "chant."

It may well be that "shanty/chantey" has a dual origin. Whichever pronunciation "came first" (something we'll probably never know), a dual origin (Scots "chantie" and French "Chantez!" via "shanty-man," or, more plausibly, English "chant" + "Chantez!") would explain the two variant pronunciations.

The "church" pronunciation, of course, is often assumed to be based on learning the word from print.

All we can say for sure is that the "shanty" pronunciation was in use by 1858. Nordhoff's is unclear.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 12:40 AM

Nordhoff came to the US at age 5.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 09:51 AM

I recall hearing both pronunciations in New York in the '50s (that's 1950s) from teachers and TV people.

Not that I heard them very often.

Wiki says Nordhoff was born in Prussia and didn't arrive in America till he was 15. If that's when he began to learn English, he probably spoke with an accent as strong as Henry Kissinger's or Arnold Schwarzenegger's.

German has no "church" sound. Maybe Nordhoff found it hard to distinguish it from "sh." Or his editor thought N was saying "chant" with an accent. Just one more consideration.

Too many imponderables here. When did the word "Schantie" first appear in German?

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 04:26 AM

Well I'm no singer (I've been known to empty whole rooms, however), but I do live in the heart of Westcountry shantyland down yer in Cornwall (we have Fisherman's Friends, with a few of whom I've hobnobbed occasionally at our St Kew pub sessions, the Boscastle Buoys and, here in Bude, Friggin' Riggin', a great bunch of lads and lasses who often sing at our Memory Café), and I've never heard it said (or seen it spelled) any other way than "shanty" as in "shhh..."

We watched an episode of Rick Stein's Cornwall series last night (series 3, episode 2 on BBC iPlayer) which featured a fantastic all-female group of shanty singers from west Cornwall called Femmes de la Mer. They aim to highlight the heroic doings of women of the sea to balance the dominance of men in shanties. They sounded just great.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 11:00 PM

I guess where I'm landing with all this is that if I were, say, on a jury, and on trial stood a Mr. Xanty. Mr. Xanty has been charged with having always been pronounced as "shingle." I could not find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Nordhoff's writing, for one, gives me that reasonable doubt, for it suggests enough that Mr. Xanty was at some time pronounced as "church."

Nordhoff provides solid observational details. What he tells about cotton screwing and about the songs is uncommon knowledge. To recall the songs with such detail that we can corroborate elsewhere says to me this was as close to reality as fair recollection, 6-7 years after the fact, can provide. I'm not inclined to suppose, with that evident high quality of observation, that he didn't hear how the words were pronounced. Then, I find nothing persuasive to say he heard "shingle" but wrote it as "chingle" to reflect a French orientation. It would be a bit too weird, in my estimation, to think Nordhoff wrote "chanting" for something that sounded like "shanting."

It need not be that the pronunciation shifted from "church" to "shingle" between 1848 and 1859. (Abbe's sea journal, by the way, in which "Shantie" appears numerous times in the 1859 entries, has now been digitized and posted by New Bedford Whaling Museum.) Maybe both pronunciations were in use by different people. In any case, I can't declare unequivocally that the word was always pronounced "shingle."

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 10:38 PM

The phrase "chanting man" occurs in the United Service Journal for August 1837.

The piece is "Saturday Night at Sea, in 1837." The men are entertaining each other with yarns and songs. The narrator calls upon someone to sing....

//
...John Tendersides, who was the only man on the forecastle who looked like a seaman... his hair was bushy and thick, and he was a fine broad-shouldered fellow, big enough and ugly enough to have fought a Spanish bull, or turned a tiger inside out. 'Now,' said I to myself, 'I shall get a stave such as I used to hear,' for his voice was as gruff as a coal-heaver's after he has cleared a collier and been the chanting man of the crew.
// (pp. 481-2)

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 03:59 PM

Basically work songs from the days of clipper ships as distinct
from foc'sl ditties. I've always heard chantey but a shanty was
a run down shack.

Halyard Chanteys, Capstan Chanteys, are there others?

(Bullgine Run?)

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 07:20 AM

My Spidey sense and an internet search tell me that "chaunty" is curious and unique.

It may not matter, though, because OED avers that the obsolete spelling variant "chaunt" was always pronounced as "chant."

But "chanting-man"? The word "chantey/shanty" was clearly problematic.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 05:00 AM

Correction to the above: _Seeing the World_ was published first in 1867.

That's important, because variations of "chanty" were pretty well known in literature by 1886. In 1867 they were not.

Now was it Nordhoff that revised as "chaunty-man," or the editor 9with or without Nordhoff's input)?

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 04:46 AM

Nordhoff's 1886 publication _Seeing the World: A Young Sailor's Own Story_ (Edinburgh) replays much of _The Merchant Vessel_. The passages about cotton screwing and singing when leaving Liverpool are nearly identical (if trimmed down of content).

However, this time it has "chanting-man" (instead of chanty-man) in the cotton screwing section, and "chaunty-man" (instead of chanty-man) in the Liverpool section. (!)

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 02:39 AM

For all of history it's been the same: Martial or Polybius; fiction or nonfiction. Sooner or later, you have to pick one and stick with it.

Gibb: "It's his memory of observations of cotton screwmen in Mobile in 1848, while a merchant sailor of circa 18 years old. He said the songs were called "chants" and the activity was called "chanting.""

Still have not got around to giving Nordhoff the full treatment but... I've got his works listed as fiction, based on a true story but, not the truth.

Boy sailor Nordhoff's memories didn't need spelling out. Young adult fiction author Nordhoff's prose did. His fictional character can spell it in Klingon as long as the target popular audience can follow along.

Using Nordhoff as a source for how "nautical rhythms" have influenced opera down through the years (Reidler) never ventures off the popular entertainment reservation. One might just as well cite video games and Tiktoks somewhere down the line.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 12:31 AM

Joe,

From above-cited article:

//
The spelling of chanty has not been standardized to date, but two spellings are very common and now offered by the online Oxford English Dictionary (“shanty | chant(e)y, n.2,” http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/177492). The first, shanty, appears to be the most common globally, and is now practically standardized in Commonwealth English. A large number, especially Americans, use chantey. Spellings with ch are maintained in the United States through its use by such archives and educational institutions as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Mystic Seaport Museum, [[to which we could add Peter's organization, San Francisco Maritime Park]] just as it was kept current through the works of related agents like Alan Lomax, Robert W. Gordon, and Folkways Records. The two communities of living singers that learned their traditions exclusively through oral tradition and in the context of labor, retired African American menhaden fishermen of Chesapeake Bay and whalermen of St. Vincent island, generally present their performances with the spellings chantey and shanty, respectively.
//

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 06:19 PM

Americans used to prefer "chanty/ chantey," but both spellings are international. "Shanty" is probably more common now.

Davis & Tozer's pioneering British collection (1887) was called "Sailors' Songs or 'Chanties.'"

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 04:07 PM

In his Feb 6 email, San Francisco Chanteyranger Peter Kasin says this:

If you are confused by the two spellings, "chantey/chanteys" is the U.S. spelling. "Shanty/Shanties" is the UK/Ireland spelling, as well as in a number of other countries.

Don't know if that's true, but that's what Peter says - and he's the only formerly professional chanteyranger I know.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 02:42 PM

I can imagine various possibilities, Gibb, none of them entirely persuasive.

1. Pronunciation in the 1840s to roughly '60s varied for one reason or another, perhaps because rationalizing, Frenchless speakers thought they heard "tchant" and "tchantay."

2. Nordhoff heard "shant(y)" but wrote "ch" to show etymology. He was thinking of "chevron" or "chevalier."

3. Or else his copy-editor, unfamiliar with the word and/or squinting at Nordhoff's handwriting, changed it. If Nordhoff wrote "chanty," the editor might have changed it as a slip of the pen. But then why keep "chanty-man"?

4. The word "shanty" was not yet in universal use. Nordhoff thought of the hauling songs as "chants" and the "chanty-man" as a "man of chants." Or else as the man who cried "Chantez!"

Concerning 1, several sailor writers specify that the "correct" pronunciation is "shanty." But how many say nothing -- perhaps indicating that they thought "tchanty" was just fine. Maybe the prescriptivists believed that the pronunciation should follow the eytmology.

That's all that occurs to me at the moment. As I say, none of these possibilities is fully convincing.

But one (or more) may just be right!

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 03:51 AM

I'm interested in knowing Nordhoff better.

Nordhoff is the person who gives us (*as far as presently known) the first mention of "chanty-man" in the 1856 publication The Merchant Vessel. It's his memory of observations of cotton screwmen in Mobile in 1848, while a merchant sailor of circa 18 years old. He said the songs were called "chants" and the activity was called "chanting."

What I'm curious about is Nordhoff's reason for spelling it "ch." Did he hope to convey (to put it as a false binary) "etymology" or "pronunciation" with these spellings?

Nordhoff was a literary man, even before his sailing career. I suppose that his spelling choice was deliberate.

The first record of the song-type spelled with the "y" sound on the end is the journal (manuscript) of Abbe's 1858-59 voyage on Atkins Adams. Abbe spells it "shantie."

Unless we suppose that the pronunciation of the word changed in the 10 years between Nordhoff and Abbe's experiences, Abbe's spelling tells us that Nordhoff was conveying (presumed) etymology. Nordhoff, so this would mean, expected his readers to know that "chants" should be pronounced "as in French."

**This is where it gets unsettling for me.**

I'd feel more comfortable had Nordhoff, elsewhere in the account, discussed the French heritage of Mobile, such that we understood we were getting some local flavor. Or, had he tossed around French terms elsewhere, we'd see he had a penchant for that. But everything reads as bog-standard Joe America as far as I can see.

How could readers know they were to see "chants" and "chanting" but that they should pronounce "ch" as a sibilant?

Some discussion in my article, mentioned up-thread, could explain "chant" as a spelling variation of the Anglicized-French "chaunt"—the French term borrowed into English. In that case, *maybe* readers would see Nordhoff's "chant" and intuit it as "the French chant" rather than "the English chant." But what would they do with "chanting," whose "-ing" ending looks distinctly English, or the "y" in "chanty-man," which doesn't look French? Nordhoff’s spellings would appear to contradict themselves unless readers could cleverly infer that they were hybrids of French and English or Creole terms.

Importantly, Nordhoff does put these words in italics, which certainly signals something. Yet here again I'm not fully reassured. He doesn't use italics to mark foreign/non-English words in the text, but rather to mark off notable terms. For instance, he puts "gang" in italics.

We know that "chants" is a special term here, clarified by the italics, but more so because Nordhoff also refers to this stuff as "songs" and "singing" ("chants" and "chanting" are the special terms for that). And later in the book, when he's leaving Liverpool and they sing "Across the briny ocean," he only calls that a "capstan song"—giving the possible implication that "chant" was more specifically the local/Mobile/screwmen's term for this variety of song.

My issue is this: The only thing that leads me to supposed that Nordhoff's "chant" was pronounced with the sibilant is the Abbe spelling ten years later in a different context and the fact that, as we have inherited it, "chanty" is pronounced with the sibilant. There is less to suggest in Nordhoff alone that his "chants" should be pronounced with the sibilant and *more* (I think) to lead the reader to assume the affricate.

The funny thing is that when I discuss, in speech, Nordhoff's work, I have no idea how I should pronounce "chants"!

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 01 Aug 22 - 02:06 PM

Fwiw my last, the search term was "singing of the sailors".

I don't have an opinion. I have a list of them.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Aug 22 - 06:19 AM

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: RTim - PM
Date: 29 May 18 - 10:57 PM

I don't really care - but tend to use Shanty...it slips off the keyboard easier.

Tim Radford
My thoughts too, good post

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 31 Jul 22 - 02:55 PM

“I love the lullaby of the waves, which sound like the rustling of leaves of a mighty forest, and although the glimpse of the moonlight through the port window tempts to wakefulness, it is pleasant to slumber to the music of the ocean, varied only by the sound of the boatswain's pipe, the distant singing of the sailors as the hoist the sails to catch a favouring breeze, the half-hourly ringing of the ship's bells, and the answer of the man on the watch that “All's well.” The “shandy” man who leads the singing of the sailors when they go round in a gang washing the decks commonly improvises a song on passing events. After each couplet the gang join in a plaintive kind of chorus, reminding me of songs I have heard sung by the monks at night in Italy.”
[America in 1876, Pencillings During a Tour in the Centennial Year; with a Chapter on the Aspects of American Life, Leng, p.18, 1877]

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 14 Jan 22 - 09:21 PM

PS: The above is drifted over from the What is a Shanty thread. Like it or not, nowadays some people call their pseudo-shanty video games and TikTok stuff as just plain 'shanty.'

And while it is tempting to lay it off as a cyberspace thing, it appears some degree of that ages old show biz switcherooni may have been going on from day one.

Not speaking to the American minstrelsy crossovers per se, but that's certainly one aspect of it.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 14 Jan 22 - 08:53 PM

Ranger: English vs British shanty lingo. The so-called “New World” was also New Scotland &c. It was, and still is, culturally, linguistically and socially diverse but highly stratified, as if you didn't know that already I'm sure.

If one part of the vessel spoke proper English, the remainder likely did not. Also, it's undignified for a 'gentleman' to shout. The Exec's job was town crier (griot, gritador); the Boatswain's was translation:

c.1750
“Many crewmen aboard a given ship in either navy* were from the same area, which was a source of unity. In the French navy, regional differences were particularly important. Ships in the Mediterranean fleet were manned by crewmen from Provence and southern France, while in the Atlantic fleet crewmen generally came from Brittany and other regions along the Atlantic coast…. The gulf between officers and men was somewhat wider in the French navy because officers did not help to raise their own crews and usually spoke only French, while crews spoke Breton or Provencal.”
[Dull, Jonathan R., The Age of the Ship of the Line, (Lincoln: U. of Nebraska, 2009, pp.17-18)]
*French or English.

So if it's an English shanty/chanty on the quarterdeck, it will likely be a near subgenre on the foredeck but with a very different 'British' label. eg:
amrán
iomramh
iorram
iurram
jorum
joram
jorram
juram
òran

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 30 May 18 - 12:56 PM

PPS: Mo French in the colonial shantytown drift.

Another, older, North American name for shantytown was shantyville. Sawmills are mentioned early & often but also mining towns or even a small gathering of covered wagons around a roadhouse.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: RTim
Date: 29 May 18 - 10:57 PM

I don't really care - but tend to use Shanty...it slips off the keyboard easier.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 29 May 18 - 07:11 PM

FYI: In Creole, the “r” in chantrelle or troubadour is often pronounced as “w” ie: chantwell & twoubadou.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 29 May 18 - 07:09 PM

Folk history alert, none of the following is true, except maybe all of it. ;)

One of the most popular edible mushrooms in North America is the chanterelle (cantharellus cibarius.) The diminutive is “chanty,” no “e.”

Held one way the mushroom looks like a funnel or flute...

“late 18th century: from French, from modern Latin cantharellus, diminutive of cantharus, from Greek kantharos, denoting a kind of drinking container.” [OED online]

“Inverted” it's a bell...

“f. The treble, in singing; also, a treble string, or bell; also, a small bell for a chyme.”
[A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, (London: 1650)]

No idea about the French minstrel or chantyman's fiddle strings though.

Apropos nothing at all, another name for shantytown is... mushroom town.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 May 18 - 02:16 PM

The mind boggles!

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST
Date: 26 May 18 - 05:26 AM

I once received a topless hand chandy in Weymouth if that helps...

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 May 18 - 08:12 PM

try again

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/leisure/stage/16249526.WHAT__39_S_ON_THIS_WEEKEND__Fayre_in_the_Square__Jazz_Jurassica__Nothe_Fort_1

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 May 18 - 07:00 PM

just in case, theres anyone reading this Dorset Wrecks have got a gig tomorrow in Hope Square, Weymouth. The weekend after its Wessex folk festival and theres bound to loads of shanty singing, and even some chantey singing going on round the harbour in Weymouth.

href="http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/leisure/stage/16249526.WHAT__39_S_ON_THIS_WEEKEND__Fayre_in_the_Square__Jazz_Jurassica__Nothe_Fort_1">http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/leisure/stage/16249526.WHAT__39_S_ON_THIS_WEEKEND__Fayre_in_the_Square__Jazz_Jurassica__Nothe_Fort_1

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 May 18 - 06:06 PM

Ah yes, Jolly Rogers and Do-me-ammerstein in the South Pacific! I remembers it well!

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 May 18 - 04:15 PM

Many times afore the mainmast we sang, 'Some en-chantey evening! me boys!'

the romance of the sea....

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 May 18 - 04:02 PM

I really don't think it matters that much. I for one am happy to accept the ultimate French derivation of the word via Gulf port influence. However, the songs had been in use for a couple of decades before anyone was using the word to describe them. I have been using 'chanty' for a couple of years in my own writing and I'm happy with that, though I don't object to anyone else using a different spelling.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 25 May 18 - 03:45 PM

Constant reminder: God didn't make the Chantyman from a handful of clay c.1800. He evolved. The era under discussion has centuries of Roman Catholic maritime culture replaced wholesale with the secular/Protestant equivalent, book burnings and all.

Sailor's Society for Stella Maris; “two-six-heave” and Let the Bulgine Run in for Salve Regina; chantyman for chanter, celeuste &c. Afaik Catholic sailors weren't all that welcome again in Martha's Vineyard environs until the early 20th century.

So if you're shooting for any logic, order or uniformity, past, present or future, for Acadia, Nantucket, Texas and California chanty application, pronunciation or spelling fuggedaboudit.

Lastly & pedantly, the so-called low, mean or crude end of the chanson scale would, methinks, traditionally come from the provençal minstrel or “chanterre” (cantores, cantatores, canteour &c) not “polite society's” psalm chanters.

Subject: RE: Shanty or Chantey?
From: Lighter
Date: 20 May 18 - 07:53 AM

> The antecedent (though not the origin per se) of chanty, I argue, is chant.

A subtle but meaningful distinction.

I concur entirely that the mere appearance of the word "chanty/ shanty/ chantey" doesn't *by itself* tell us anything about the practice of sailors or stevedores at work. The early evidence you've collected indicates strongly that the singing came before the word.

Nobody ever said, "If we sing, our work will be easier! And let's call these new work songs "chanteys"! Like a trademark thing!"

As you say, if an early chantey sounded chant-like to an observer, it would have been called a "chant." Otherwise it would have been called a "song" (the word Dana used in the 1830s).

The usual pronunciation of "chant" strongly suggests to me that "chantey" comes from elsewhere - presumably French or Gulf/Caribbean French Creole, etc. I also agree that "chantyman" came first.

It may have been in a context where English was dominant but the chanteyman began the work by shouting "Chantez!" in French. That made him the "chantez man" to English speakers. That would explain the "sh" pronunciation. The vowel change would then have come from association with English "chant." And, as you say, a "chanty" became the song led by a "chanty-man" - particularly if the English-speaker also knew some French.

In other words, the origin of "chanty/ shanty/ chantey" is complex rather than singular.