Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ For Fück1950: 128-33, the value ‘melody’ is based on the original idea of a *‘deviation from the normal’, extended into the field of language and speaking; ‘melody’ would thus properly be an *‘abnormal way of speaking’. The positive connotation (pleasant deviation) seems to be earlier than the negative ones than laḥn took in Isl times (for these, cf. ↗laḥana ‘to make grammatical mistakes’, etc.).
▪ LandbergZetterstéen1942, misreading Günzburg1892, would derive laḥn ‘melody’ from Grk liχanós (see detail below, section DISC), but this seems unlikely for pholonogical reasons.
▪ For [v2] ‘incorrect Arabic, grammatical mistake’, etc., cf. ↗laḥana.

hist

▪ …

cogn

–

disc

▪ According to Fück1950, the value ‘melody’ is derived from the basic idea of a *‘deviation from the normal’ in language and speaking, whence also the other values of laḥn in ClassAr, like ‘manner of speaking, intonation, speech, dialect’, ‘bad, incorrect Arabic, gibberish; grammatical mistake, blunder’, and ‘allusion, hint, insinuation’ (WKAS) (for these, cf. ↗laḥana).
▪ While [v1] ‘melody’ is attested already for pre-Isl times, Fück believed that the preponderance of [v2] ‘grammatical mistake’ which somehow overgrew most of the others (with the exception of ‘melody’), can be explained as a phenomenon of the period of futūḥ (see ↗laḥana). Ayoub, too, thinks that the value ‘positive/pleasant deviation’ is prior to the negative connotations, which came with linguistic normativity in the early Islamicate period.
▪ In contrast to the established view which sees the LḤN as one etymological unit, Günzburg1892 thought that »some musical terms, like laḥn ([Grk] liχanós) and ↗naġam ([Grk] neûma), were probably borrowed by […] Greeks and Arabs […] from a third people, without doubt of Sem descent.«¹
▪ Misreading Günzburg’s theory (but finding this reading more convincing), LandbergZetterstéen1942 derives laḥn in the sense of ‘melody’ directly from Grk liχanós ‘index, forefinger; hence also: the string struck with the forefinger, and its note’.² »J’ai toujours pensé que laḥn ‘mélodie’ et laḥn ‘faute de grammaire’ sont deux mots de provenance différente. […]. Cette polysémie me paraît indiquer que tout ce thème LḤN peut pas provenir d’une source commune arabe. Mais déjà de bonne heure et avant l’Islam, laḥana a pris le sens de ‘chanter’.« LandbergZetterstéen finds this etymology »assez probable« because it also shows »en même temps l’origine de la musique arabe moderne«.³ – From the point of semantics, this theory is certainly not without some plausibility. Phonologically, however, it seems difficult to explain how liχanós should have become laḥn.
▪ On account of the many and partly contradictory values that laḥn could take in ClassAr, some lexicographers counted the word among the ʔaḍdād (for more details, cf. section DISC in entry ↗laḥana).

1. David Gincburg [Günzburg], Osnovy arabskogo stichosloženija [Introduction into Arabic Prosody], Sankt Peterburg: Tip. Imp. Akademii nauk, 1892, reviewed by W. Barthold in his “Russische Arbeiten über Westasien”, MSOS (Berlin), 1 (1898), 2. Abt.: 150-71, here 152-3. 2. Akin to Grk vb. leíχ-ein ‘to lick’ (Skr lehmi, Lat ling-ere, Got bi-laigōn = oHGe lecchōn, nHGe lecken ‘to lick’, Ir ligur ‘tongue’ < WGerm *likk-ō- < IE *leiǵʰ- ‘to lick’). => Is laḥn akin to Lat lingua ? Or perh luġaẗ to lingua , or is it mere coincidence? 3. Günzburg (as paraphrased by Barthold, in my [SG] translation from the German): »It is a well-known fact that Arabic music developed under the influence of Greek and Persian music […].«

west

▪ The Ar word has been borrowed into nHbr as laḥan ‘tune, melody’ (cf. also the denom. lāḥan ‘to sing, chant, psalmodize’ and the Š-stem hi-lḥîn ‘to set to music, compose; to sing, chant, psalmodize’ – Klein1987) and Malt lehen ‘voice’ (Rajki2005).

deriv

► laḥḥana, vb. II, 1 to chant, psalmodize; 2 to intone, strike up a melody; 3 to set to music, compose: D-stem, denom., caus.
► talḥīn, pl. talāḥīnᵘ, n., musical composition, musical arrangement: vn. II.
► talḥīnī, adj., singable: nsb-formation from vn. II.
► mulaḥḥin, pl. -ūn, n., composer (mus.): PA II.

For other values attached to the same root, cf. ↗laḥana, ↗laḥin, and, for the whole picture, ↗LḤN.

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