31.3773, Media: Night Before Xmas (Linguists Edition!) + Other Fun

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-31-3773. Tue Dec 08 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.3773, Media: Night Before Xmas (Linguists Edition!) + Other Fun

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Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2020 04:04:23
From: Dave Sayers [dave.sayers at cantab.net]
Subject: Night Before Xmas (Linguists Edition!) + Other Fun

 
Hello one and all, and /jəʊhəʊhəʊ/! Happy Non-Denominational Solstace-Related
Period of Universal Annual Leave! 🎅

Every year I spam round this parody poem of mine, because of the dangerous
level of positive feedback I receive each year. I always warn people of this
endless circle, but every year I receive messages of delight and appreciation.
Stay quiet and I'll stop!

But to keep things fresh ever year, I try to include some other new fun
seasonal linguistics-related baubles. This year I thought I would share some
translations of classic Christmas songs.

In no particular order, let's start with 'White Christmas' in Russian:
https://youtu.be/C4yDc3ELVhA

How about 'O Holy Night' in Yoruba? https://youtu.be/MUpHw8-hO3Q

Then there's George Michael’s 'Last Christmas' in Spanish:
https://youtu.be/TdAQ6GSLM0Y

And here's the same song but featuring a fantastic bit of code-switching
and/or translanguaging, in English and Chinese: https://youtu.be/9UO1eNqzsIk
(sometimes switching within lines of the song!)

And if you liked two languages, try three! Here's 'Silent Night' in English,
Hebrew and Arabic: https://youtu.be/4lnLIGUtWpQ

Now let's enjoy this happy dude outdoors singing 'Santa Claus is Coming to
Town' in Hindi: https://youtu.be/c9ngtTv5QQM

I'm contractually obliged to include some Finnish, so here goes with 'Have
Yourself a Merry Little Christmas': https://youtu.be/OY65qd6LalA

(By the way, a lot of people think Santa lives in Finnish Lapland, but
actually he lives further south, quite near me in Jyväskylä:
https://goo.gl/maps/QAAPKa21wineGfEV6.)

Now to pick up the pace, not a translation but still just too good to leave
out: a spectacular mashup of Marilyn Manson’s 'Beautiful People' with Mariah
Carey’s 'All I Want for Christmas is You': https://youtu.be/A1X3d2zWx94. You
are especially welcome for that.

Last but not least, the best one I found was a genuinely epic rendition of the
same Mariah Carey dancefloor-filler, but with the lyrics fed through a random
series of languages in Google Translate, and then back into English. The
result is quite a phenomenon: https://youtu.be/qG9XiLRHdvg

Ok, now it's poem time. Here we go-ho-ho folks, with the first three
stanzas...

''Twas the night before Christmas in the ivory tower,
Not a creature was stirring at the midnight hour,
Twas a problem for linguists who live to hear sounds,
Consonants, vowels (open or round).

We linguists were nestled all snug in our beds,
While visions of fricatives danced in our heads.
Snug in our gowns and our four-cornered caps,
We pondered enigmas like bilabial taps.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter.
I sprang from the bed hoping for research matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Hoping my equipment would record and not crash...''

The poem continues here: https://www.academia.edu/9856733/. Enjoy!

Feel free to share it far and wide (it has a Creative Commons licence:
https://CreativeCommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/). And it's printable too -
perfect for real world spamming!

For the tweeps among you, please also do what comes naturally:
https://twitter.com/DaveJSayers/status/1334798748963246080

Festively yours,
Dave

-- 
Dr. Dave Sayers, ORCID no. 0000-0003-1124-7132
Senior Lecturer, Dept Language & Communication Studies, University of
Jyväskylä, Finland | www.jyu.fi
Communications Secretary, BAAL Language Policy group | www.langpol.ac.uk
dave.sayers at cantab.net | http://jyu.academia.edu/DaveSayers
 


Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics



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LINGUIST List: Vol-31-3773	
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