SUO GAN (literally Lull/Murmur Song) is a very old Welsh Lullaby.
I spent hours translating this song. Checking different translations/connotations for each word, moving the word order around until I figured out the intent of the sentence. In doing so, I discovered that many of the official translations (including wikipedia) are either partly wrong or just incomplete on a sentence level. Unless I am wrong, which happens often.
The song seems to be a few hundred years old, and has words that are used in an archaic and/or idiomatic way.
For instance, a certain word (gyntun) means quickly and sometimes formerly (as in quickly past). In English, "fast" means both quickly, and to not eat. And guess what, "Gyntun" can also have this double meaning. But at the time the song was written, "gyntun" is supposed to mean sleep. How can this be? Think of our word breakfast...to break your fast, as you were not eating while you were sleeping. In this line, "gyntun" means sleep because the baby is not eating, and babies are always eating, ha! It becomes a double meaning. They use it to mean "nap" but there is also the double meaning that this nap for the baby is a break for the mother!!!
Part of this process was lovely, like discovering that the word Breichiau, meaning arm, is an indirect cognate, not with arm, but with Brachial!!! Biceps Brachii, Brachial Artery, Brachial Plexus...it is a cognate with the anatomical word for arm!!! So dang cool.
But this was simple compared to dissecting phrases that seemed mistranslated or incompletely translated.
For instance, there is a line that translates online as "smiling sweetly in your sleep," but the forensic translation is "smiling gently to yourself." In context, this child is not just smiling, but smiling to him/herself (while the preceding lines indicate the sleep state) which is another layer!
And then there are the double entendres that are left out (like nap and break and fast above).
"Paid ag ofni, ton fach unig" translates as online as "do not fear, only a small wave." They are translating "unig" as only, which works well enough, but not completely. "Unig" means alone or lonely, and while it can be used as only, there is lost depth. I feel like it should be something like: "Do not fear, it is but a lonely wave."
I tried to understand the subtext of each line. Like why would a leaf be knocking on the door? It wouldn't, it would be tapping or scratching. But to a parent seeing the world through the eyes of a child that could be a fearful moment or moment filled with joy or wonder, so the writer of the song chose the word Gura, which means knocking, or like beating on a drum. This anthropomorphizes the leaf, and allows the mother father to be farcical and whimsical. The leaf is knocking...maybe it is lonely, which is explored two lines later, with the lonely wave.
Also, the way I really pronounced things...studies show that "baby talk" is as it is for a reason. Those exaggerations of vowels and consonants and changes in pitch (cooing) are there to make the language more understandable to the baby as it is learning.
Pronunciation challenges: After 4 days of checking each word by replaying that word sung by different singers (who maddeningly change the lyrics), while consulting pronunciation guides, I finally have it phonetically mapped out. Problem is, there are also different accents.
Each time I thought I had it, I realized, nope, that EE sound is sung with pursed lips, making it like the German umlaut, and nope, that U sound is not a U, it is actually a W sound, but held as a vowel, which I think is so lovely and cool, but a challenge.
Not only are there non-English morphemes (sound combinations, including three quick vowels in a row that require a fast mouth shift to accommodate), but there are 4 phonemes (sound units) that do not appear in English, including TWO that I had never seen/sung before, despite having sung in many different languages. One, the double L seems almost Aztec. And I thought Swedish was hard.
Also, I have to confess, I did probably 80-90 takes on this, and what is worse, the version you are hearing is a frankenstein version. Sometimes I sound a little hoarse, sometimes I do not. The take I finally liked still had a couple of mistakes, including me running out of breath on an N sound, but also some digital errors from incompatible software after a software update, so I inexpertly cobbled three versions together to get the emotional connection that each version had as its strong point. I know this is cheating from an Opera/live performance perspective, which I hold dear, and I apologize to those, like me, who cringe at this admission. I need to become a better singer.
But my flaws aside, isn’t this just a lovely song?
Joshua