Meaning and grammar

Question

"not the least being why so many different cultures came up with so many of the same tonal qualities in their music completely independent of one another."

I want the meaning but I would be appreciated if anyone can explain this expression in detail. I mean it's grammatical structure. That sounds so strange and awkward!!

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

jaleh~~I want the meaning~~ I would like to know the meaning, but I would ~~be appreciated~~ appreciate it if anyone ~~can~~ could explain this expression in detail. I mean ~~it's~~ its grammatical structure. ~~That~~ It sounds so strange and awkward!

Note above how to ask your question.

jaleh"not the least being why so many different cultures came up with so many of the same tonal qualities in their music completely independent of one another."

You have to give us the whole sentence. Without the whole sentence we have to guess. This fragment starts with "not the least", but because we don't know what came before, we don't know "the least of what?"

As it turns out I was able to find the source online. Let me give you the meaning first. Then you may be able to understand the grammar better or to ask more specific questions about what you'd like to know.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about ancient music, not the least being why so many different cultures came up with so many of the same tonal qualities in their music completely independent of one another.
~
There are a lot of questions about ancient music that have not been answered.  One of the more important of these questions is "Why did so many people from different parts of the world invent the same kind of music when they didn't even know each other?"

CJ

Clive · Answer

The basic structure is this. There are many Xs, not the least being Y.

Here Y is an instance of X.

eg There are many popular colas, not the least being Coke.

This means that Coke is not the least popular cola. In fact, it is usually an understated way of saying that Coke is the most popular cola.

Here's another example.

eg There are many great playwrights, not the least being Shakespeare.

Now let's consider your example.

why so many different cultures came up with so many of the same tonal qualities in their music completely independent of one another.

This is an embedded question about the music of different cultures.

The first part of your sentence is missing, but it needs to be something like this.

eg There are many important questions about the music of different cultures, not the least being why so many different cultures came up with so many of the same tonal qualities in their music completely independent of one another.

Meaning and grammar

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions