Marais and Miranda

[Wilson Gray]

A friend sent me a kind of teach-yourself-kiSwati grammar from
Swaziland in 1976. I still have the book, but the only word that I can
recall is _sipune_ [si'pune] "spoon." Who knew that the British Army
had borrowed a word from an an obscure south-african people? ;-)

I wonder when they stopped being *Joseph* Marais and Miranda and
became simply "Marais & Miranda"? When I saw them last, on TV in the
*very* early 'Fifties - Texaco Star Theater? Your Show of Shows? -
they were still *Joseph* ..., as they were on radio, and he became
simply "Marais"?.

-Wilson

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Marais and Miranda
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 7/7/2009 02:28 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>
>>On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> > Zulu pidgin for "I'm a little teapot...."
>> >
>>
>>Dammit, you got me a-searchin'! Mudcat Cafe, of course. This is the song I
>>learned from Marais & Miranda recordings.
>
> I had the pleasure of hearing it sung by Marais and Miranda. Â (In
> NYC, although I no longer remember what venue.)
>
> Joel
> ditto folkie.
>
>
>>http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=2769#1949082
>>==========
>>*Subject:* Lyr Add: ZULU WARRIOR (from Marais and Miranda)
>>*From: <http://www.mudcat.org/help.cfm?helpitem=from>*
>>Q<http://www.mudcat.org/usersearch.cfm?who=Q>
>>*Date:* 26 Jan 07 - 05:08 PM
>>
>>Gee, this whole long thread and no Marais & Miranda lyrics.
>>-----
>>*THE ZULU WARRIOR*
>>Marais and Miranda
>>
>>March tempo
>>I-kama zimba zimba zayo
>>I-kama zimba zimba zee,
>>I-kama zimba zimba zayo,
>>I-kama zimba, zimba,
>>See him there, the Zulu warrior,
>>See him there, the Zulu chief, chief, chief
>>See him there, the Zulu warrior,
>>See him there, the Zulu chief, chief, chief, chief
>>I-kama zimba, I-kama zimba
>>Zikama zimba layo zee,...
>>Wah! chief, chief, chief, chief!
>>Wah!
>>
>>Optional second voice:
>>I-kamazimba zimba zayo
>>I-kama zimba zimba zee
>>I-kama zimba zimba zayo
>>I-kama zimba zimba zee,
>>and etc.
>>With score. Marais and Miranda, Folk Song Jamboree, pp. 62-64, Ballantine
>>Books pb.
>>
>>Note- "AFRIKAANS ORIGIN. During the so-called Kafir War, the British
>>soldiers sang "Hold him down the Swazi warrior." I substituted Zulu as being
>>a more familiar name, and brighter "nonsense" words than I used to hear as a
>>child. This is NOT a native chant, but rather an imitation of the type of
>>chanting heard by the settlers. I would call it a pickniekliedjie, a picnic
>>song. During World War II, American GI's sang it in conjunction with South
>>African troops in North Africa." Marais.
>>-----
>>
>>Bert, way up above, seems to have some of the older words Marais is talking
>>about.
>>
>>Words and music by Josef Marais, copyright 1946 and 1952 by Dartmouth Music,
>>Inc.
>>
>>==========
>>
>>m a m
>>50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s folkie (and 90s and 00s filker)
>>
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>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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