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Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers
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Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers |
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Subject: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: Jack Blandiver Date: 13 Jan 07 - 09:28 AM As a teller of traditional stories I'm fascinated by the innumerable occurences of folk tale analogues that cut across linguistic & cultural frontiers; as a singer of traditional folk songs, on the other hand, I'm amazed that it would appear that in this respect the borders are closed. So, discounting those efforts of deliberate translation - but including those that occur in the bi-lingual regions of Ireland, Scotland & Wales etc. - can anyone give examples of any traditional song / ballad in the English-speaking tradition that has a parallel in that of another language / culture? BTW - this links with a thread on The Harvest Home forum: http://www.harvest-home.org/ (see Songs Specific to Areas). |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontier From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 13 Jan 07 - 09:38 AM I can't give authoritative examples or quotes, but I have understood that variants of Barbara Allen exist in a number of European languages. Also Lord Randall. With less assurance, I would have expected The Demon Lover (aka The House Carpenter, and other titles) to be international and cross-cultural. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: wysiwyg Date: 13 Jan 07 - 11:55 AM Suggest you PM Susan of DT in case she doesn't see this thread. And Mmario. And Ferrara. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: wysiwyg Date: 13 Jan 07 - 11:57 AM PS, welcome to Mudcat, Sedayne! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: MMario Date: 13 Jan 07 - 12:39 PM I know just enough about this subject to know that such songs exist - can't give you specifics; but I'm sure sooner or later people who have the facts will pop onto the thread and answer you. I do remember Bruce Olsen having fgiven examples; I'm sure Wolfgang has; probably Malcolm Douglas. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: DMcG Date: 13 Jan 07 - 01:36 PM If you look at the notes accompanying the "English And Scottish Ballads" by Prof. Child, you will see that the vast majority have counterparts from elsewhere in Europe. Taking "Edward" as an example at random - because I sang an Arkansas version last week - realted songs in Danish, Finnish, Sweden and German are mentioned. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: DMcG Date: 13 Jan 07 - 01:38 PM Sorry, the title of Professor Child's work is "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads", of course. But you knew that. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Date: 13 Jan 07 - 01:55 PM Thanks DMcG for mentioning that. Child's is one of the best annotated collections anywhere for tracing the intricate web of song, tale and anecdote from popular ballads in English through the whole gamut of European cultures and onward following Slavic tradition as far away as Asia. Ballads are probably the best kind of song for this because they contain a narrative, a story with a beginning, middle and end. I'm guessing that it would be much harder to find non-ballad songs that have relatives beyond the language and cultural barrier, because lyric songs, for instance, depend on immediate impression. Thus something like "She's Like the Swallow" or "My Dearest Dear", while not culture-specific in intent (they're both quite universal-seeming love lyrics) seem not to spawn relatives (or descend from originals) in, say, Italian or French. Looking at it the other way, "La Cucaracha" and "A La Claire Fontaine," to pick two common ones, have no analog in English or, so far as I know, any other language, apart from some translated versions that haven't achieved much currency. "Podmoskovniye Vyechera" became a fairly popular song in English, "Moscow Nights, yet that too was basically a translation. "Tzena Tzena Tzena" likewise -- though it succeeded in both languages, it didn't spawn a tradition in Anglo-speaking countries. Maybe the truth is that ONLY a story can cross the barrier and create a true parallel tradition in another language? That no song that hasn't got narrative can do it? Another consideration is that the European antecedents of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads exerted their influence in part through conquest -- such as the Danish and Norwegian incursions that seeded ballads in Scotland southward into England, but largely missed Ireland. So also the Saxon influence from the continent. It would be interesting to see whether non-ballad songs in the Celtic tradition we now see in Ireland, Wales and Scotland can be traced back into Germany and other Celtic homelands, as the Child ballads have been. So: Is language the ultimate barrier that prevents song traditions from spreading, ballads being an exception? But foreign pop song crazes from the tango to the bossa nova certainly show that dance rhythms can go where lyrics often cannot -- Bob |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: GUEST,Bob Coltman Date: 13 Jan 07 - 02:22 PM A curiosity: in China in 1984 when we were there, "Jingle Bells" was one of the most popular stage songs, and at a guess may have attained some currency among ordinary Chinese as well. It didn't translate, of course. As nearly as we could tell, its Chinese title was "Ding, Ding, Ding." But it seemed to touch a chord as a bouncy, cheery song Chinese took to their hearts. Ballads, Colm O'Loughlainn, the Irish collector said, were a kind of international language as recently as the 1950s. He noted how receptive European Youth audiences (native speakers of most of Europe's languages) were to the ballads he sang, whether in Irish or English. Something about them definitely did, in that era, seem to cross international barriers as other music did not. Pop songs of course follow different rules. They impose themselves by media hegemony. "Yesterday," just to pick one, has traveled everywhere, but does not of course follow traditional routes, being farmed out by the wonderful world of international media. Japan fields some quite decent bluegrass bands, not to mention exporting the weird and wacky -- Shonen Knife, for one -- with catchy lyrics that spawn imitators among us. (I say nothing of karaoke.) And you have only to hear Italian blues to glimpse what can happen when ... need I go on? Traditional songs, though, travel far further underground. They depend on deeply imbued cultural assumptions and needs as pop songs largely don't. I'm struggling to think of even one that has overcome the hurdle of language. "Waltzing Matilda," perhaps? That song has made friends everywhere in the world. Still I'm not sure it has created a separate tradition in another language. One song that seems on the point of doing so is "Lili Marlene" -- spread by war into numerous countries and translated into a truly astounding array of languages -- is pop in origin, but has taken on the aspect of a folksong in the way it has spread and produced variants. It may eventually come as close as any to being a true international folksong with traditions in more than one language group. Perhaps it needs a bit more time before its lyrics really begin to change away from the original, but it seems to be on its way. Bpb |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: Jack Campin Date: 13 Jan 07 - 03:21 PM There is an amazing discussion of "The Outlandish Knight" in A.L. Lloyd's book where he traces the story to a then-Turkic part of western Mongolia some 1500 years ago. Also in Turkic tradition, there is a version of "Two Magicians" by Pir Sultan Abdal, the Alevi-Bektashi bard from central Anatolia who was executed for raising an insurrection in the time of Suleyman the Magnificent. It's so elaborated with Sufi theology that it must have been based on a folk original. Carlo Ginzburg's "Ecstasies" is good on this sort of thing - a lot of the folklore of southern Europe started in central Asia. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontier From: Tradsinger Date: 13 Jan 07 - 03:56 PM There are traditional versions of "Seven Nights Drunk" and "Night Visiting Song" in Spanish. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: wysiwyg Date: 14 Jan 07 - 10:19 PM refresh |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: Jim Dixon Date: 14 Jan 07 - 11:13 PM EDWARD (Child #13) has a Scandinavian parallel called SVEND I ROSENSGAARD (in Danish) or SVEN I ROSENGÅRD (in Swedish), or VELISURMAAJA (in Finnish). See this thread. THE TWO SISTERS (Child #10), also known as THE CRUEL SISTER, BINNORIE, THE WIND AND RAIN, etc., has a Norwegian parallel called HORPA (THE HARP) and a Polish version called DWIE SIOSTRY which is mentioned in this thread but we don't have the complete lyrics or a translation. I'll bet there are a lot more that aren't documented at Mudcat. This topic gets little attention because so few of us are bilingual. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Analogues Across Linguistic Frontiers From: Richard Bridge Date: 14 Jan 07 - 11:17 PM Reynardine seems often to be thought to have travelled from C14th France to the UK, but the how and why are harder. |
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