Nursery Rhymes (1)

Posted by Katrien Vander Straeten May 5, 2006

Has this ever happened to you? You are singing a popular song in your own language, fully owning it, often since childhood... and suddenly someone wants to know what version that is of their song in their language? Not only is the song suddenly no longer unique to your culture. But you actually know and have sung the other version, and you never made the connection!

Recently this happened to me, and to my husband. Eight months ago we had our first child, Amie, and in order to expose our daughter to our native languages (Dutch and Bengali), we have been digging up nursery rhymes and sing-along songs way deep from our childhood memories.

Boy, were we in for some culture shock!

The melodies that we sang as ours, we discovered, were created in other countries, where they were put to other lyrics and languages altogether.

This week I discuss the songs that were the occasions for my and my husband's surprise: 'k Heb de zon zien zakken (in English: She'll be coming down the mountain) and Laal jhuti kakatua (that is, Yankee Doodle).