Celum Calia. African speech and afro-european dance in a 16th century song cycles from Naples

Around the mid-16th century, in Italy, a group of anonymous humanists - courtiers versed in the arts of music, letters, and theatre - created a set of songs that depicts African slaves and freedmen singing and playing in an Italian town, probably Naples. While serenading their girls, the African characters in this song cycle cherish to to be freed by their masters. While singing, courting, and quarrelling, they speak an Afro-Neapolitan pidgin that combines the mispronounced local dialect with authentic African words and sentences in Kanuri -- an Afro-Nilotic language still in use in the Bornu region (North-East Nigeria). The songs are known as 'canzoni moresche', meaning Moorish (i.e. black African) songs. Although the 'moresche' were intermittently studied by a handful of European musicologists since the late 19th century, nobody had recognized yet that the most obscure sections in the lyrics were not a zany made-up of African speech, but a true language. Talking Kanuri, moresche's characters utter conventional greeting formulas and idiomatic expressions of racial pride, summon the black slaves in the neighbourhood, and make reference to song and dance as traditional ways to celebrate and communicate. For a long time, the first known evidence of written Kanuri have been considered those founded in scattered European manuscripts and documents dating around late 18th-early 19th century. Only the 'canzoni moresche' offer earlier traces of written Kanuri. They are also powerful cultural effect of African diaspora. A whole microcosm of African tradition, customs, feelings - and probably also shreds of original melodies and rhythms - appear to be featured in the Italian Renaissance.

16世纪中叶前后，意大利地区的一群匿名人文主义者——精通音乐、文学与戏剧艺术的廷臣——创作了一组歌曲，描绘了非洲奴隶与自由民在一座意大利城镇（大概率为那不勒斯）中歌唱演奏的场景。在向心仪女子献唱时，该歌曲组中的非洲角色期盼着能获得主人的解放。在歌唱、求爱与争执的过程中，他们使用一种非洲-那不勒斯混合语（Afro-Neapolitan pidgin）：将发音不准的当地方言与地道的卡努里语（Kanuri）词汇和语句相结合——卡努里语是一门仍在博尔诺地区（尼日利亚东北部）使用的非洲-尼罗语系语言。这类歌曲被称为“canzoni moresche”，意为“摩尔人之歌（即非洲黑人之歌）”。尽管自19世纪末以来，已有少量欧洲音乐学家间断性地对这类“摩尔式歌曲”展开研究，但此前无人意识到歌词中最晦涩的段落并非滑稽杜撰的仿非洲言语，而是一门真实存在的语言。这些“摩尔式歌曲”中的角色以卡努里语进行对话，说出了常规问候语、带有种族自豪感的惯用表达，召集附近的黑奴，并提及将歌舞作为传统的庆祝与沟通方式。长期以来，学界普遍认为已知最早的书面卡努里语文献出自18世纪末至19世纪初散落的欧洲手稿与档案资料。唯有“canzoni moresche”留存了更早的书面卡努里语痕迹。它们亦是非洲散居文化极具影响力的文化遗存。一整个囊括非洲传统、习俗与情感的缩影——或许还留存有少许原始旋律与节奏片段——似乎都在意大利文艺复兴时期的这类作品中得以体现。