What is "homophony"

Homophony \Ho*moph"o*ny\, n. [Gr. ?: cf. F. homophonie.]

1. Sameness of sound.

2. (Mus.)

   1. Sameness of sound; unison.

   2. Plain harmony, as opposed to polyphony. See Homophonous.

1776, from French homophonie, from Greek homophonia (see homophone).

n. 1 (context music English) a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. 2 The quality of being homophonous.

1. n. the same pronunciation for words of different origins

2. part music with one dominant voice (in a homophonic style)

In music, homophony (; Greek: ὁμόφωνος, homóphōnos, from ὁμός, homós, "same" and φωνή, phōnē, "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh out the harmony and often provide rhythmic contrast. This differentiation of roles contrasts with equal-voice polyphony (in which similar lines move with rhythmic and melodic independence to form an even texture) and monophony (in which all parts move in unison or octaves). Historically, homophony and its differentiated roles for parts emerged in tandem with tonality, which gave distinct harmonic functions to the soprano, bass and inner voices.

A homophonic texture may be homorhythmic, which means that all parts have the same rhythm. Chorale texture is another variant of homophony. The most common type of homophony is melody-dominated homophony, in which one voice, often the highest, plays a distinct melody, and the accompanying voices work together to articulate an underlying harmony.

Initially, in Ancient Greece, homophony indicated music in which a single melody is performed by two or more voices in unison or octaves, i.e. monophony with multiple voices. Homophony as a term first appeared in English with Charles Burney in 1776, emphasizing the concord of harmonized melody.

Homophony (from the , homós, "same" and , phōnē, "sound") in a theory of writing systems is one of the forms of phonogram –meaning “different signs for the same value”, i.e. the same sound combinations represented by different signs.

John Heise in the Chapter 4 of 'Akkadian language', the book on the origin and development of cuneiform gives the following example (see cuneiform transliteration):

He comments: “In transliterations the same sounds that are represented by different cuneiform signs are distinguished with an accent or an index. The signs for ni, ní (i with accent aigu), nì (i with accent grave), ni4, ni5, ... are all different cuneiform symbols. ní may be called (and pronounced among Assyriologists) ni2 and nì as ni3. These accents thus have nothing to do with word accent.”

Homophony and Homophonic are from the Greek ὁμόφωνος (homóphōnos), literally 'same-sounding,' from ὁμός (homós), "same" and φωνή (phōnē), "sound". It may refer to:

• Homophones - words with the same pronunciation.
• Homophony − in music is a texture in which multiple voices move together in harmony.
• Homophony (writing) − in a theory of writing systems is one of the forms of phonogram.
• Homophonic substitution cipher - a cipher that disguises plaintext letter frequencies by homophony: 'e' is given more homophonic ciphertext symbols than 'z'.