Hi Max, > 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 Frenchnote 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).
From an outstanding Italian vocabulary: nòta s. f. [dal lat. nŏta «segno, contrassegno, marchio, ecc.», di etimo oscuro, non essendo possibile, per la brevità della ŏ, una connessione con nōsco «conoscere» e nōmen «nome»] which means from Latin “nŏta” «sign, countermark, mark, ecc.», obscure etymology, because a connection with nōsco «to know» and nōmen «name» is impossible, as the ŏ is ‘short'. > 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." nodo derives from Latin “nōdus”, which was knot, bond, obligation. In Italian it means both knot (of a fishing net, for example) and node of a network. > "Note" is a significant concept in some ways because it relates music to > words and writing to speech. Could notaderive also from *ned-, given the > many similar derivations? Not necessarily, but who knows. > 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 thatnota 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? actually “notaio” is translated as “notary”, and they still exist and are called as such. "notàio [lat. notarius (derived from nota)]" So if nota has the connection you think it has, then it is possible. Hope it helps, Alessandro > > All best, > > Max > > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > <mailto:NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org> > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > <https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour>
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