Sorry about the small scope of the question but…
What exactly does “lanlire” (sp?) mean in the song “La Poule á Colin”?
Merci.
Good question. I’m originally from Quebec and I must say that I don’t know the answer. It’s obviously an old term, belonging to Quebec folklore. I checked in my Petit Robert québécois but found nothing. It’s probably listed in the Bélisle Dictionary of French-Canadian terms (You wouldn’t happen to have a copy handy, would you?). My WAG would be something akin to a lament or song but I could be way off.
Recently discovered La Bottine souriante?
You may be misspelling the term. If you were to post the lyrics of the whole verse, I might be able to get it from context.
Thre’s even a song called “La Lanlire,” but it’s a Louisiana cajun song, IIRC. “Lanlire” is definitely not a French word, so it must be a proper noun.
According to this, the spelling is correct:
http://205.237.37.145/lasido/bottine_souriante/le_lanlire_bottine_souriante.html
Lanlire is written with the first letter in upper caps, which means it is a name. I have no idea what it is tho, and I’m french-canadian…
It is spelled correctly. Here’s only one of the many hits you’ll find on Google:
http://www.magi.com/~yvondian/chanson/lanlire.htm
RickJay:
Aside from the fact that I fail to see the logical implication that if the word is not a French word, it must therefore be a proper noun, I would say that ‘lanlire’ is definitely a French word, most probably fairly old and no longer used in mainstream conversation. Could very well be a regionalism.
You probably meant to say that, since it is capitalized, it must be a proper noun. I would doubt that it is.
mgadam:
Vous voulez sans doute dire “un nom propre”.
The lyrics found here (and in several other URLS):
http://www.megacom.net/~dricard/chansons/bottine/jourdelan.html#colin
would seem more accurate than the ones quoted in the URL provided by mgadam. Aside from the grammatical error (‘entend’ takes an ‘s’ in the 2nd person sigular), the text goes on to say “Tu n’entends pas mon latin”. Which means “You do not hear my Latin”. Whereas in mgadam’s URL, it says “Tu l’entend pas mon lapin”. Which means “You do not hear my rabbit”. Slight difference…(although, given that the subject matter is a hen, it might be a rabbit, but I doubt it:D).
As I noted in a previous post, I inferred from this that ‘lanlire’ means a lament. And perhaps lanlire and Latin are made to be synonyms for some obscure reason.
Final observation: I’ve noted that lanlire’s gender varies. Some URLs give it in the masculine form, others in the feminine, a phenomenon not that uncommon with regionalisms.
Pas mal, merci beaucoup!
I of course first checked it in my standard French dictionaries first, and it of course wasn’t there. Haven’t got the Bélisle dictionary, strangely enough, although there is, believe it or not, a small department of Québec studies here at the University of Leipzig! Could look there.
Otherwise, I discovered la Bottine years ago, and have seen them twice in fact – great stuff!
Of course, there are quite a number of other unusual words in their songs, but this one has been troubling me for a while. I, btw, always thought that they sung “latin” and not “lapin”, but I’ll have to go look for the cd now…
Heh, heh, heh. It would have been strange if you had had it. It’s not exactly the French equivalent of the Oxford Unabridged, but I’ve found it quite useful for old French terms.
I’m pleasantly surprised and impressed. May I ask what got you interested in Quebec’s culture and language?
Well, I was in Quebec for the first time on a cycling trip about 15 years ago, and thought the people and atmosphere were great – about as friendly and helpful as anywhere else I’ve ever been. I’ve been back a couple of times since, but not often enough. I’m also generally interested in language and culture, so there you have it.
As for Bottine, I discovered them by chance a few years ago at a music festival here in Germany, for me the highlight of what was and is always a great festival (Rudolstadt, every 1st weekend in July, if you’re ever out this way.)
A German Quebecophile! Cool!! You’re correct in saying that Quebecers are, on the whole, friendly and helpful. On your next visit, if you have the time and are a nature buff (which your cycling expedition would imply), I would suggest you spend a couple of days in the Laurentians and/or Charlevoix county. Very nice spots, although Charlevoix tends to be a bit touristy during the summer and early fall.
Sorry to disappoint you (hopefully not that much), but I’m not exactly German. Although I’ve been living here for just about 10 years now, I’m originally from New York, which explains my access to Quebec, anyway.
But thanks for the advice on the Laurentians. We are already looking forward to going back, and also like to go on long hinks. And maybe to console you on my not really being German, I can tell you my German wife also has become a bit Quebecophile herself, despite the -30° when we were there together!
Oops, that should read “we like to go on long hikes”. Don’t know how that happened.
Thought of asking you specifically, but didn’t. Glad to hear that your German wife took a liking to Quebec
Heh! Correct me if I’m wrong but Germany isn’t exactly balmy Hawaii at certain times of the year!! But I do realize that minus 30 degrees (plus the wind-chill factor if you were lucky;)) may be a bit much for your average German:D.
I’ll reproduce below the URL I just gave dewt in another thread; it might help you better plan your trip.
http://www.out-there.com/htl_mps.htm
P.S.: If you happen to find out what a ‘lanlire’ really is, perhaps you could post the answer. I’d be interested to know.
Well, Germany can get cold, but below -20 (except maybe on top of mountains) is extremely rare. When we were in Quebec City, it was -35 with plenty of wind. But we knew what we were getting into going up there in the middle of winter. I guess we’re just nuts.
Thanks for the link. We probably won’t get to go for a while, due to obvious geographical and other logistic problems, but we will eventually.
And thanks for finally unhijacking the thread! I’ll see if I can find out anything at the Quebec Studies Center here, or whatever it’s called…
This might make me obsessive (or extremely optimistic) but since nobody knew the answer the first time around, I thought I’d bump it up…
Hi, I’m from Québec. I’ve heard this song many times, and was always under the impression that the words “ma lonlire” were simply nonsensical words such as those like “lonla” (heard in “Ah, si mon moine voulait danser”. Most sources I’ve seen have it as a common noun (no capital), and the gender does vary. This song appears to be originally from the Poitou region of France, and one online French source show the words as “ma lolire”. http://dsansault.free.fr/Chansons/fr/poule_colin.html
Those who are familiar with Abbé Gadbois’s “La Bonne Chanson” (a compilation of hundreds of folk songs of Québec) will have noted similar use of extra syllables like “lalaire”, “dondaine”, “ô-gai”. This device of adding extra syllables may be used for effect.
I have to agree with the opinion that this is simply, well, nonsense.
As MoodIndigo1 has mentioned, nonsensical words are very common in Québec folk.
From a (somewhat) famous folk song:
Words in italics are all nonsensical.
I then tried a Google search for “lonlire,” and the only result was a page that had lyrics for a song, malenlire, by a band called Baqqhus. (Which I’ve never heard of.)
There is an e-mail address at the bottom of the page linked above, if you’re really curious about the origin of the word you might try asking them.
J’espère que ça a aidé un peu.
It might also be a deformation of another word, lanlaire. I found this definition at this site :
Basically, it is an archaism meaning go away, go play in traffic, etc.
omni-not, in the sentence Tu l’entends pas, mon lapin, “lapin” would be better translated by “bunny”, since it seems to be an endearing term.
Le problème ici est que ya trop de Québécois qui ce servent dun dictionnaire québécois.Ici dans l`Ouest on fait la recherche dans un dictionnaire Français qui nous dit… Faire LANLAIRE : euphémisme de foutre ou fiche,Envoyer faire LANLAIRE :envoyer promener.