Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Deda
Date: 15 Jun 02 - 02:05 PM

Lilandice,
Littera privata tibi misi. I've sent you a personal message with the "Crusta Americana" lyrics. If you're not sure how to access them, go to "Personal Pages" and look around, you'll find it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 02:47 AM

Lectoribus benevolis salutem!

A short critique of the Macdonald versions:
Macdonaldus senex fundum habuit ... et in hoc fundo nonnullas boves domesticas habuit ...
Sounds pretty classic, but is too long to fit the tune. Considering the original "a cow", the other translation should be preferred:
et in hoc fundo habuit bovem (or vaccam)
Wrong/correct forms et in hoc fundo habuit carnem canem
et in hoc fundo habuit galenas. (chicken) gallinas, better sg. gallinam
et in hoc fundo habuit anetras. (duck) anates, better sg. anatem
et in hoc fundo, habuit porkem porcum
et in hoc fundo, habuit vinem vinum
Allow me to discuss some grammatical and technical problems.
Considering the number of syllables allowed by the tune, the translations into Latin should be kept as short as possible. Albeit Latin prefers habere, possidere for the substantial possession, the dativus possessivus is not ruled out. In this case we should recur to it. For the sake of brevity I shouldn't object to leave out the habuit in the first line and define the past by a fuit in the second one:
Macdonaldo seni rus ...
Et in rure fuit bos ...
(Rus, not only the land in general, but also a defined part of land; the same as fundus or villa: a farm)
... Et in rure fuit canis
... Et in rure fuit gallina
... Et in rure fuit anas
... Et in rure fuit sus
I still remember the English version my English master taught us at school which we sung with joy. To enliven the Latin lessons one can use the Latin version, too; I think my alternate version will make it easier for the children.

If you want to hear the weekly news in Latin, switch to: http://www.yle.fi/fbc/latini/, a service of Radio Finland.
A Web periodical in Latin you'll find at http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/retiarius/

Since Winnie ille Puh was mentioned, let me tell you about some more translations in my shelves: Tristitia salve : fabula amatoria / Francisca Sagana. E Gallico in Latinam sermonem conversa ab Alexandro Lenardo. - Paris: Julliard, 1963. (Here we find "Aqua vitae modo Scotorum praeparata"; a name which needs longer to be pronounced than the fluid to be gulped)
You have guessed it: Bonjour tristesse / par Francoise Sagan
And naturally not to be forgotten: this jolly fierce fighter from the shores of Gaul. In 1973 the first volume Asterix le Gaulois was translated into Latin: Asterix Gallus, published in Stuttgart by Ehapa Verlag. The book is a runner and has a lot of reprints, the last one in 2001.
My Latin version of Pinocchio has vanished mysteriously; maybe it shows up again in one of my daughters' dens.
There also is a Latin version of Haegar terribilis; I don't know whether this Danish Viking cartoon is known in America.

Valete Wilfried

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 05:18 AM

Jeanie, it sounds like the book you mentioned is a me-too version of Mots d'Heures -- Gousses, Rames (sorry, can't do accents), which was published in 1967 by Luis D'Antin Van Rooten. The German version sounds equally brilliant. Does it also include academic-sounding footnotes "explaining" the often bizarrely-phrased "poems"? For example:

Un petit d'un petit
S'etonne aux Halles
Un petit d'un petit
Ah! degres te fallent...

The footnote to the first line says: "The inevitable result of a child marriage."

And Micca's ditty reminds me of this one that I learned from my Latin teacher:

FUNEM? SVFM.
FUNEX? SVFX.
OKILFMNX

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 07:53 AM

Oh, oh! I was too tired this morning. Instead of "et in rure fuit ... " "hoc in rure ..." sounds far better.
So let's try it again:

Macdonaldo seni rus;
hi-a-hi-ha-ho.
Hoc in rure fuit bos;
hi-a-hi-ha-ho.
Cum muh-muh hic,
muh-muh ibi;
hic muh, ibi muh,
ubique muh-muh.
Macdonaldo seni rus;
hi-a-hi-ha-ho.

...
hoc in rure fuit sus ...
cum oink oink ibi ...

...
hoc in rure fuit mus ...
cum quic quic ibi ...
and so on.

Cantibus gaudete
Wilfried

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 07:58 AM

Oh, oh! I was too tired this morning. Instead of "et in rure fuit ... " "hoc in rure ..." sounds far better.
So let's try it again:

Macdonaldo seni rus;
hi-a-hi-ha-ho.
Hoc in rure fuit bos;
hi-a-hi-ha-ho.
Cum muh-muh hic,
muh-muh ibi;
hic muh, ibi muh,
ubique muh-muh.
Macdonaldo seni rus;
hi-a-hi-ha-ho.

...
hoc in rure fuit sus ...
cum oink oink ibi ...

...
hoc in rure fuit mus ...
cum quic quic ibi ...
and so on.

Cantibus gaudete
Wilfried

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: SharonA
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 01:58 PM

I'm so glad that Wilfried brought up the issue of the translation of "e-i-e-i-o" (as, he says, "hi-a-hi-ha-ho"). Now, "hi-a-hi-ha-ho" works if you consider it to be an approximation of the noise "e-i-e-i-o", but if you consider "e-i-e-i-o" to be a string of letters, as written, than the translation would have to be:

epsilon - iota - epsilon - iota - omicron!

(which, of course, doesn't fit the meter of the song, but would be fun to sing anyway!)

Sharon

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: SharonA
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 02:01 PM

Oh, wait... That's Greek... Then what would the Latin letter-names be?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Deda
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 03:28 PM

To get those sounds using the Latin phonemes, it would go (long)i, ae, i, ae, (long) o -- n'est-ce pas? But I don't know the Latin names of the letters.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Haruo
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 05:28 PM

It occurs to me this might be the place to get an Itsy-Bitsy Spider translation. I've posted a request that has so far gone unrequited here. Latin would be welcome, or anything else (I only know it in English and Esperanto).

Liland

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Jeanie
Date: 17 Jun 02 - 06:00 PM

Yes, Mark, Moerder Guss Reims is the German sequel to Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames - complete with the "learned" annotations. I'm delighted to find another fan of these brilliant books ! They were written by John Hulme who worked as an interpreter in the Royal Air Force.

Here's a good one:

Dick Wien (1) auf Harz, sie meid' samt Arzt

Orlon ass, um er steh. (2)

Der Neffe Fahrt sehr stolz (3); sie tat's

Und Tuch dem Reiterweh. (4)

Footnotes:

(1) The Viennese are noted for their love of good food and they tend to put on weight as a result. (2) The poet advises the fat people of Vienna to eat resin in order to avoid the doctor and Orlon in order to remain upright. (3) "The nephew is very proud on the journey." He was probably ashamed to be seen out with them before, even assuming that they could get into his car. (4)"She put a cloth in the car so they would not suffer from rider's pain." The delicacy of this line conceals a reference to an ailment to which so many who lead a sedentary life and eat all too well are martyrs.

Another of my favourites is the line from "Goosey, Goosey Gander" : "Who wouldn't say his prayers", which is "translated" as "Hu ! Bodensee Express".

- jeanie

Subject: Lyr Add: VETULUS MACDONALIS / OLD MCDONALD
From: GUEST,Michael Myer
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 11:13 PM

Hope you'll pardon a post from an interloper. I'm a Latin teacher and use songs quite a bit in my classes. I heard about the thread here and will paste in part of a post to Latinteach from a few months ago:

~~~Begin Quote~~~
Just a couple more thoughts on the animal stuff.

First, a typo. The line:

>ursi unvant vel fremunt et saeviunt

should read "ursi unCant vel..."

The C and V are right next to each other on the keyboard, so it was an easy mistake. There may be others, I just happened to notice that one.

Second, I am notorious for starting my very youngest students on the Latin alphabet and its sounds by introducing them to Ager Vetuli Macdonalis. For those who don't know it, it runs like so:

VETULUS MACDONALIS (OLD MCDONALD)

Vetulus Macdonalis agrum habebat
A E I O V
Et suo in agro habebat
A E I O V
Cum hic
Et illic
Hic illic
Ubique

(The fun part is getting them to spell the sound that their animal makes using the sounds of the Latin alphabet.
E.g.--

Vetulus Macdonalis agrum habebat
A E I O V
Et suo in agro canem habebat
A E I O V
Cum uuf uuf hic
Et uuf uuf illic
Hic uuf illic uuf
Ubique uuf uuf)

Whatever else we do during those first days of class, we add one or two animalia to our fundus [1]. And every year, the kids shock and surprise me with the animals they want on the farm and the sounds they come up with. A few from the most recent group of 3rd graders:

simius dicit "û û".
anas dicit "quâc".
pullus dicit "pîp".
capella dicit "mâ".
mûs dicit "sqvîc".

There are 21 of these on this list. Not too bad for yunguns, eh?

Pax,
MMe
sometimes remembers why he loves doing this stuff

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 1-Jul-02.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Haruo
Date: 29 Jun 02 - 11:49 PM

Salve, Mike!

Good to see somebody take me up on the invitation. There are no interlopers at the Mudcat; only GUESTs. ;-)

Another recent thread any Latin teachers nosing about hereabouts should visit is Teaching Latin, Using Latin. I forgot to mention it on Latinteach.com.

Liland/Lelandice

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 05 Feb 03 - 03:03 AM

Another Latin version: Look on this page for Gaius est agricola
The sounds produced by the animals, although, are not totally satisfying, since they are not described onomatopoetically as in the original, but by verbs (yours truly's humble opinion).

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Schantieman
Date: 05 Feb 03 - 12:42 PM

LOL, Sharon!

I shall pass this entire thread on to our classics department!

Steve

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Latin form of Old MacDonald's Farm
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 05 Feb 03 - 03:29 PM

I knew Old Mac Donald well!
He could speak no Latin but Gaelic was his mother tongue.
                Slainte,
                   Sandy
   

Seann Mhac Dhomhnaill

        Seann Mhac Dhomhnaill. gu robh` ait aig ,
I ai I ai o
Air an aite bha aige cearcan,
I ai I ai   o
Le glug-glug siud agus glug-glug seo
Seo glug, siud glug, a h-uile h_`aite glug-glug
Seann Mhac Dhoinhnaill. gu robh ait aig ,
I ai I ai o.


Seann Mhac Dhomhnail1 gu robh `ait aig
I ai I ai o,
Air an aite bha aige tunnagan,
             I ai I ai o        
Le glag-glag siud agus glag-glagL seo,
Seo glag siud glag h-uile h-`aite glag-glag
,Seann Mhac Dhomhnaill gu robh ait aig
I ai I ai o.

Seann Mhac Dhomhnaill gu robh ait aig ,
I ai l ai o,
Air an aite bha aige geoidh
I ai I ai o,
Le hong-hong siud agus hong-hong seo
Seo hong siud hong, a h-uile h-aite hong-hong
Seann Mhae Dhomhnaill gu robh ait aig
I ai I ai o.
        
Seann Mhac Dhomhnaill gu robh ait aig ,
I ai I ai o
Air an aite bha aige crodh,
I ai I ai o,
Le mu-mu siud agus mu-mu seo,
Seo mu siud mu a h-uile h-aite mu-mu,
SeannMhac Dhomhnaill gu robh ait' aig ,
I ai I ai o


   (*from the late Hugh F. MacKenzie, Christmas Island. Recorded in

   the Cape Bretoniana archives.)