Anybody care to enlighten me (and I suspect a great many other folks have wondered about this too) about what the translation to tha childrens song Vera Jaka (Yeah, yeah. I’m not spelling it right. If I knew how to spell it right I’d just look it up on the web).
Vera jaka, vera jaka
Do mei vou, do mei vou
um…
dum, dum, duh, duh, duh, duh…
dum, dum, duh, duh, duh, duh…
Ding, dong, ding
Frere Jacques?
Brother Jack,
Brother Jack,
Are you sleeping?
Are you sleeping?
Hear the morning-bells!
Hear the morning-bells!
Ding, ding, dong!
Ding, ding, dong!
Um… that’s *Frère Jacques.
Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines,
Din din don, din din don.*
Brother James, Brother James,
Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Matins (‘morning bells’) are ringing, matins are ringing.
Ding ding dong, ding ding dong.
The song is addressed to a monk. The matins are the early morning prayers that monks have to get up for well before dawn.
In French singing, the usually silent e is pronounced as a schwa to make a syllable: Frè-re Jac-que.
Hmmm. I learned it as Brother John.
So which is it? John, James, or Jack?
“Jacques” is the equivalent of Jack which I believe is a variation of “John”. The French “Jean” would be the equivalent of “John”. Not too sure about James, in Spanish, you get “Diego” but I’m not sure where this leads us in trying to answer what it would be in French.
ANYway, when we sang the song in kindergarten, you had both hands behind your back and started with “Where is thumb-kin? Where is thumb-kin? Here I am. (Bring hand out with thumb out.) Here I am. (Now out comes other hand like the first.) How are you today, sir? (One thumb “asking” the other”) Very well, I thank you. (Other responding) Run away. (Hand returns to behind back) Run away."
Then for the next fingers, you replaced “thumb-kin” with “pointer” “tall man” “ring man” (I think) and “pinkie”.
Ahh, kindergarten. Them’s were the days.
French Jacques translates to James. It is from the name Jacob (in its various Hebrew and Greek incarnations as it followed Christianity and Judaism across Western Europe). (Note that the periods when England and Scotland had kings named James are referred to as the Jacobian periods.)
I am not sure when (or, especially, why) the English-speaking people inserted an “M” into the name and lost the C/K/G sound. (In Italian, it is Iago.)
Jack has been a nickname in English for the name John for a very long time. I am not sure how this arose.
In the song in question, two changes are made when translating from French to English: Jacques becomes John and “din din don” becomes “ding dong ding.” The sound of the bell probably changed simply because the English phrase “ding dong” is more common.
The Jacques to John conversion is more problematic. We could guess that Jacques was initially made into the sound-alike Jack, then re-written to use the more formal John. On the other hand, it might have simply been alternatively translated or mistranslated from the very beginning–I have never encountered a variant of the song that used Jack instead of John, so I am guessing that the Jacques=>Jack=>John sequence never occurred.
(coding error fixed - Jill)
[Edited by JillGat on 06-16-2001 at 12:07 AM]
I wish this machine supported Preview better.
I learned a different name AND a different order.
Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John
Morning Bells are ringing, Morning bells are ringing
Ding Dong Dign, Ding Dong Ding
That’s probably because it rhymes better that way in English. (ABCB rhyme as opposed to ABCA). The French version doesn’t really rhyme at all, though.
Zut alors, does no one know French here? No one has caught my mistake.
Sonnez les matines actually means ‘Ring the [bells for] matins!’ It’s an imperative verb here. Apparently, Brother Jacques is the bellringer for the monastery and he has overslept.
My interpretation has been confirmed by an Italian who posted:
Translation: You know, in the beginning it was a song to tell Brother James to ring the bells that were called “les matines” which was the morning prayer.
Incidentally, the Italian form of Jacques is Giacomo or Giacobo. The sounds of /m/ and /b/ are frequently changed into one another because they’re articulated the same way. The Qur’ân alternatively refers to Makkah (Mecca) as “Bakkah.” There was a renowned Sufi saint in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco called either Ibn Bashîsh or Ibn Mashîsh, but no one is sure which version was his real name. This explains how the m got into James.
And I learned an English version with ‘John’, but the last line different from the one pepperlandgirl knows :
Ding ding dong, ding ding dong
Probably because it rhymes better with John, or because it’s closer to the French song.
Okay, let’s see if I remember the versions in my basal series music books. Forgive the spellings and grammar errors, but teaching was years ago.
French - as Jomo mojo has already stated.
Spanish -
Frey Felipe, Frey Felipe,
¿Duermes tu? ¿Duermes tu?
¡Tocan las campanas, tocan las campanas!
Ton, ton, ton. Ton ton ton.
German (or Yiddish - can’t remember) -
Bruder Martin, Bruder Martin,
Schlaefts du noch, schlaefs du noch?
Ringen an die glocken, ringen an die glocken!
Bim bam bum. Bim bam bum.
Interesting side note - the song is featured as the third movement of Mahler’s First Symphony (informally called “The Titan”), albeit in D minor and quite slow. From the Philadelphia Orchestra program notes:
“The third movement (Feierlich und gemessen, solemnly and measured), originally based on a woodcut entitled “The Hunter’s Funeral,” retains a pastoral redolence despite its heavy sadness; its thematic material derives from “Bruder Martin” (Brother Martin, best know in its French version as “Frère Jacques”), making that innocent children’s tune into a solemn minor-key dirge initiated by a double bass solo. The funeral march is interrupted by tawdry band music that heightens the feeling of queasiness.”
A more detailed anaylsis can be found here: scroll down to the third movement.
Spanish variations of jacob/james include: Jacobo, Jaime, Yago, Santiago, Diego. John is Juan.
Part of what’s so fun about this song in other languages is seeing how the bell sound is interpreted. I only learned “ding dong ding”, but it’s really neat to see “ton ton ton” and “bim bam bum”. Thanks for reminding me about this song-- it’s a bit like seeing an old friend.
The version I learned:
Are you sleeping, Are you sleeping,
Brother John? Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing,
ding ding dong, ding ding dong.
This version inverts lines one and two in meaning. I believe it does so because the lines match the meter better in this arrangement. Compare to
Brother Jo-hn, Brother Jo-hn,
Are you sleep(ing)? Are you sleep(ing)?
See how it flows better in English to swap the lines?
Then the bells ring “ding ding dong” to provide a near-rhyme to John. I suppose the French “don” would be a better rhyme, but English onomatopeoia uses the “ong” sound for bells.
Oh, and the John vs. Jack or James or Icabod is to rhyme with dong, of course. Note the three common names there all are one syllable, so none would fix the meter problem.
Note that the “b” sound of “jacob” has also turned into an “m” in Gaelic: “Hamish” is the Gaelic version of “Jacob.”
Why has this song been translated into so many languages? Is the French version the original one? And where did the “thumbman” (my recollection of the lyric) version come from?
Hamish is scottish gaelic, in irish James is Seamus (Shamus)and John is Sean (Shaun)…but then this is a language where Seoirse (Shorsha)is George and Sorcha (Sorucca)is Sarah.
Biggirl, I do not know if French is the original version, but I know many children’s songs are translated into different languages. Probably the adults liked the song enough to produce a translation to teach their kids. Or some monk had nothing else to do and translated it into different languages?