I remember reading some French “poetry” in my French class that sounded like English nursery rhymes when read aloud. It was all French words and the sentences basically made sense, but when read aloud it would sound like “Little Jack Horner sat in a corner…”
The “poem” might look like this:
L’ettle Jacque orner cet en ay courner
(Imagine that’s valid French. I can’t remember enough high school French to come up with valid words)
It’s not a translation of “Little Jack Horner.” Rather, it’s French words which when pronounced sound like “Little Jack Horner”.
Does anyone have a link to something like that? I tried searching for those types of poems, but I didn’t have any luck.
Was it nonsense French phrases strung together to sound like Little Jack Horner? I have a book of english “poems” called Les Oeuvres complètes de Lord Charles (I found some samples online here: Les Oeuvres complètes de Lord Charles )
In my book, the english poems are just words strung together so that when you read them out loud they sound like old French popular songs.
This book must have what you’re looking for:
Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames
discovered, edited, and annotated by
Luis D’Antin Van Rooten, (London, Angus and Robertson, 1967.)
An Almanac of Words at Play by Willard Espy has a chapter on the same thing, but using German instead of French. And it’s not just nursery rhymes, IIRC (it’s been 30 years since I read that book!).