Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Frankham
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 12:15 PM

I think it has to do with Russian Gypsies. They often sing "Davi Davi Dava" as kind of a Russian or Ukranian scat singing. "scoo-ba doo-ba doo-ba doo-ba" in American.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 02:57 AM

He's going to be in Newbury on July 26. Check here for other dates: Gordon Bok summer and fall concert schedule.   

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 02:37 AM

how does it help the calf? Nothing. But that is not the intention of the song. M.Ted has stated the point: Ironically it describes the Jewish situation as a forigner in the Tsar's realm. If you are born as a Jew you are bound to suffer.
... but this song ignores too much of reality and simply blames the victim Wrong. The song exactly describes the situation (up to the beginning of the 20th century). The victim was always then.

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 07:18 AM

Oh my, posted to the wrong thread - due to some nervous breakdowns of the 'Cat.

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Genie
Date: 17 Sep 11 - 09:02 PM

Wilfred [[Oh god, and now they are bowdlerizing the folksongs!
In the original the poor calf is slaughtered without anaesthetization; that is the meaning of schekhtn.]]

As I've learned the song (including the way Joan Baez sings it), the line is not
"Calves are easily bound FOR slaughter"
But
"Calves are easily bound AND slaughtered."

English doesn't have a verb comparable to "schekthn" and the closest translation that would scan with the tune seems to be just to use the word "slaughtered" (which does not imply anesthetization).

But this is a digression from the question of what "Dona Dona" means.

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 18 Sep 11 - 05:31 AM

Genie,

Joan Baez' version I don't know. Correct translation is: People tie up small calves, drag them away and slaughter them.

The root shakhat means to slaughter, and as everyone concerned with the usage knows that it is done without anaesthesy as ordered by the holy texts of Jews and Muslims, and so did our Christian forefathers before more enlightened generations invented some more human devices to avoid unnecessary pains.

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: GUEST,Angela
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 09:50 AM

Not to make this even more confusing, but in Irish gaelic, dona means "badly." How positive is everyone that Dona Dona is Yiddish?

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: GUEST,Ruth Kevess-Cohen
Date: 15 Sep 13 - 11:28 PM

Saluton! I just discovered this thread as I recently started to learn Esperanto and was curious to know if there was an Esperanto translation of the song Dona Dona. It was my father, Arthur S. Kevess (1916-1973), who wrote the original English translation of the Yiddish song, more than 40 years ago. I remember him putting the finishing touches on his translation and singing it to us. He was thrilled when Joan Baez performed it. We are still receiving royalty statements listing performances on a regular basis all over the world. Most, if not all of the subsequent translations into other languages appear to have been based on my father's English translation; they all appear to leave the refrain "Dona Dona Dona" untranslated, which makes sense to me. I plan to search in my father's papers to see if I can find any more information on this point. If I do, I will certainly post it here.

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: GUEST,Masumi
Date: 27 Nov 13 - 07:03 PM

I've known this song since Joan Baez's original, a long time ago.
Also, I've known the deep meaning of this song related to the suffering of the Jewish people under Nazi Germany.

I've been mentioning this to Japanese people since this song has been very popular in Japan and it is in many Japanese music textbooks for primary and/or secondary education.

When you copy the following Japanese word on YouTube,
ドナドナ
you'll find the Japanese version of this song.

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 13 - 07:22 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhiyCsZegLU

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Nov 13 - 08:16 PM

Hebrew and Yiddish songs often use those kinds of "nonsense" syllables...especially among the Hasidim, where wordless melody is central to the tradition.

The tune of "Dona, dona" is actually pretty close in idiom to a lot of nigun melodies. The words are about as far from the Hasidic worldview as you can get, though.

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Tuvya
Date: 11 Oct 19 - 07:58 PM

This is a profound song...can't the "dona dona dona die" be the wordless response to the winds that only laugh at the impossibility of a calf growing wings. Or that justice can actually be achieved. Is there an implication that the calf may become an angel, a martyr perhaps? The suggestion that one can choose to be either a bird or a calf seems to exist in the last verse...and maybe feeds into the notion of the new jew in the promised land...or are the jews who made it out of the Nazi clutches the birds now free? Some sing this song not with resignation but with bitterness at the indifference of the winds... some find triumph that they learned to "fly"... such a mixed message song from 1940?..perhaps "blowing in the wind" redeems the wind after all?

Subject: RE: Help: Meaning of 'Donna donna' in Yiddish
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Oct 19 - 07:31 AM

The Wikipedia page has a fair bit of background. I can't find a link to the script for the original play translated into English, though. The cynicism of the words clearly has zilch to do with the Holocaust and needs the original context to be really explainable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dona,_Dona