Q: Translate the "Yanker didel" lyrics?

[Jonathan Lighter]

 >>there are at least four towns in France named "Gray," but that doesn't
mean that I'm
competent in French.

I bet if you visited, they'd have to make you mayor!

As for "Yankee Doodle," an excellent historical essay on the subject by John
Picker appears in Harvard's _New Literary History of America_ (a book of,
shall we say, very uneven value).

As the title suggests, the book just appeared a few months ago.

JL
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 12:34 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Q: Translate the "Yanker didel" lyrics?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> You may have to ask someone professionally-trained in Dutch. I don't
> consider myself at all knowledgeable in Dutch, but this looks, at
> best, only semi-literate, Ordinarily, it would be simple enough to
> translate the words using an on-line Neerlands-Engels woordenboek or
> using one of the many multi-volume dictionaries available at Widener
> and figuring it out from there.
>
> The Dutch word for "milk" is spelled _melk_, that for "and" is _en_ <
> _end_, not _und_, "a" is _een_, i.e. not null, and that for "tenth" is
> _tiende_. I wouldn't bet money on it, but, these spellings are
> probably valid for 1855, too. I won't so much as hazard a guess as to
> what the preceding three lines may be in real Dutch, since they look
> like mere gibberish to me. _Y_ isn't even a letter of the Dutch
> alphabet. But I'm already at the outer limit of my (in)competence in
> assuming that the spelling, _en_, was already used in 1855.
>
> The Duyckincks apparently bought it as Dutch and _Duyckinck_ is as
> about as Dutch a name as you could ask for. OTOH, there are at least
> four towns in France named "Gray," but that doesn't mean that I'm
> competent in French.
>
> -Wilson
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Q:  Translate the "Yanker didel" lyrics?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Can someone who is knowledgeable in Dutch translate the following,
> > alleged to be an ancestor of "Yankee Doodle"?  (The earliest such
> > allegation that I have found via Google Books is 1855, in the
> > Duyckincks' _Cyclopaedia_.)  I am also interested if these lyrics or
> > similar could have been used circa 1600-1650.
> >
> > Yanker didel, doodel down
> > Didel, dudel lanter,
> > Yanke viver, voover vown,
> > Botermilk und Tanther.
> >
> > The Duyckincks say "in use among the laborers, who in the time of
> > harvest migrate from Germany to the Low Countries, where they receive
> > for their work as much buttermilk as they can drink and a tenth of
> > the grain secured by their exertions."  They say the last line is
> > "buttermilk and a tenth".
> >
> > And "This song our informant has heard repeated by a native of that
> > country, who had often listened to it at harvest time in his
> > youth."  If so, the words would at least have been understandable circa
> 1800.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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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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