{"id":23933,"date":"2016-07-04T20:38:58","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T18:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=23933"},"modified":"2018-02-28T11:55:45","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T10:55:45","slug":"les-comptines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/les-comptines\/","title":{"rendered":"Les comptines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my house, we sing lots of <em>comptines<\/em>, or French nursery rhymes.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m partial myself to\u00a0<em>Au clair de la lune<\/em>, which coincidentally, is\u00a0the song featured on one of the earliest recordings ever made in 1860. (You can listen to it <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Au_Clair_de_la_Lune_(1860).ogg\">here<\/a>, although it is somewhat difficult to hear.) However, there is a simpler (and newer) song that, once it gets into your head, it gets stuck! My son is partial to this song, in particular, and often sings it during car rides. Called &#8220;Les petites poissons dans l&#8217;eau,&#8221; it features only four lines of lyrics, or\u00a0<em>paroles:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Les petits poissons dans l&#8217;eau<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Les petits poissons dans l&#8217;eau, nagent, nagent, nagent, nagent ,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Les petits poissons dans l&#8217;eau nagent aussi bien que les grands.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>les grands, les petits nagent comme il faut<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Nager<\/em>, here conjugated in the third person plural\u00a0<em>nagent<\/em> means &#8220;to swim.&#8221; Note that, as in many French songs and poetry, the typically silent &#8220;e&#8221; at the end of\u00a0<em>nagent\u00a0<\/em>is pronounced. You can listen to it here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Les petits poissons dans l&#039;eau\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P7ipjEOdceM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Another favorite is\u00a0&#8220;Il \u00e9tait un petit navire,&#8221; which, like some of the older French \u00a0nursery rhymes, is more complex and darker. It didn&#8217;t start out as a children&#8217;s song and if you take a listen to the lyrics, you might understand why. It tells the story of a young shipwrecked sailor who is picked to be eaten by his famished crew mates&#8211;and then saved by the grace of god. Some scholars believe that it is about the wreck of the Medusa in 1810&#8211;and that the song must date back to shortly after that time.<\/p>\n<p>The song is lengthy, but repetitious&#8211;and the melody is very catchy.<\/p>\n<p>The first verses begin:<\/p>\n<p><em>Il \u00e9tait un petit navire<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There was once a little boat<\/p>\n<p><em>Qui n\u2019avait ja-ja-jamais navigu\u00e9<\/em><\/p>\n<p>That had never sailed<\/p>\n<p>Oh\u00e9 ! Oh\u00e9 !<\/p>\n<p><em>Ahoy! Ahoy!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh\u00e9 ! Oh\u00e9 ! Matelot,<\/p>\n<p><em>Ahoy! Ahoy! Sailor,<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Matelot navigue sur les flots<\/p>\n<p><em>Sailor sailing on the high seas<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh\u00e9 ! Oh\u00e9 ! Matelot,<\/p>\n<p><em>Ahoy! Ahoy! Sailor,<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Matelot navigue sur les flots<\/p>\n<p><em>Sailor sailing on the high seas<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Some of the later verses recount the darkest moments of the shipwreck:<\/p>\n<p>On tira \u00e0 la courte paille,<\/p>\n<p><em>They drew straws,<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pour savoir qui-qui-qui serait mang\u00e9,<\/p>\n<p><em>To figure out who would be eaten,<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh\u00e9 ! Oh\u00e9 !<\/p>\n<p><em>Ahoy! Ahoy!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Le sort tomba sur le plus jeune,<\/p>\n<p><em>Fate selected the youngest boy,<\/em><\/p>\n<p>C\u2019est donc lui qui-qui-qui fut d\u00e9sign\u00e9,<\/p>\n<p><em>It was thus him who was chosen,<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh\u00e9 ! Oh\u00e9 !<\/p>\n<p><em>Ahoy! Ahoy!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You can listen to the song and watch an animated video of it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Q0JRm_yw408\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the song ends on a high note, but it&#8217;s a pretty dark tale to recount. Many nursery rhymes have entered into history this way and relate stories some parents would consider too macabre for their children today, in English as well (&#8220;Ring around the rosies,&#8221; anyone?.<\/p>\n<p>Can you think of other French nursery rhymes you are particularly fond of?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my house, we sing lots of comptines, or French nursery rhymes. I&#8217;m partial myself to\u00a0Au clair de la lune, which coincidentally, is\u00a0the song featured on one of the earliest recordings ever made in 1860. (You can listen to it here, although it is somewhat difficult to hear.) However, there is a simpler (and newer)&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/les-comptines\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,108,13],"tags":[408455,408456],"class_list":["post-23933","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-music","category-vocabulary","tag-comptines","tag-french-nursery-rhymes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23933"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29019,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23933\/revisions\/29019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}