Q: Translate the "Yanker didel" lyrics?

Wed Jan 27 22:44:45 UTC 2010

Isn't there also a derivation from "Janke"  (i. e. "Johnny", with the
-ke(n) diminutive of the Northern dialects or Low German)?   I took
Dutch many moons ago, and fool around with dialect variation in
Dutch, but....the first three lines look like vocables to me and
nothing more--I couldn'f find anything like "lanter".  "Botermilk" is
fine--Dutch "botermelk".  "Tanther" for "tiende?"  West Flemish, or
even better, Zeelandic (few Belgians came to NY) has a short vowel
there, and the resulting /E/ is lowered to [æ] too, so that might
work, but "buttermilk" comes out as "beutermulk" (I think) down
there.  Otherwise, just junk: "tante" = "aunt", of course, and
"tanden" (silent n) is "teeth".  Doesn't make sense.

Paul Johnston

I'm not fluent in Dutch either, but
On Jan 27, 2010, at 9:55 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Q: Translate the "Yanker didel" lyrics?
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> ---------
>
> Vital note:
>
> The secret HDAS files contain utterly inconclusive information
> about the
> ety. of "Yankee."
> The claim that it comes from "Jan Kees" ("John Cheese") seems to be a
> fantasy.
>
> Somebody should into the possibility that, as used to be claimed,
> it really
> does come from a Northeastern Native word for "English" (allegedly
> "Yengees").  Not only does this seem phonetically plausible, Magua
> (Wes
> Studi) actually uses  _Yengees_ in his apparently genuine Delaware
> speeches
> in _The Last of the Mohicans_.
>
> Surely Hollywood wouldn't make up something like that! The credits
> list
> "Glen Jacobs: language instructor: Delaware."
>
> I once had a student named "Dennis Yankee."  He must know where the
> name
> came from!  But he didn't.
>
> To add to the fun, a possibly Dutch pirate, "Captain Yankey," was
> sailing
> the Caribbean in 1683. A "Captain John Williams" seems to have been
> called
> "Yanky" a few years later, but for all I know they were the same guy.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 9:34 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>w=
> rote:
>
>>
>>>> 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 boo=
> k
>> 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 circ=
> a
>>> 1800.
>>>>
>>>> Joel
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> -Wilson
>>> =96=96=96
>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=96=96a strange
>>> complaint =
> to
>>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>> =96Mark Twain
>>>
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>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle
>> the truth=
> ."
>>
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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