So, Sumer Is Icumen In...

[conuly]

Has anybody ever tackled translating that in a way that's, you know, singable? Because the original is very singable, and the translations make sense, but I've yet to find a translation that fits, well, any meter, let alone that one! Google is failing me, and I really don't like singing songs in another language which that pretty nearly is. I worry that a native speaker (or the equivalent) will overhear me and laugh. Yes, these are the things that worry me.

Comments

[steorra (from livejournal.com)]

my understanding is "is verb" back then meant something more like "has verbed" rather than "is verbing"

More than that, "is i-cumen" is is + past participle of come, not is + present participle of come.

Re: the song overall: In the childrens' choir I sang in growing up, when I was probably roughly grade-12-age, we started learning a rather bad modernization of the song. I knew enough Middle English at that point to know that the modernization was not good and that some of the explanations given for what things meant didn't ring true to how Middle English worked. So I got out my Middle English book, which contained the original, went over the spelling rules to work out how to transcribe it phonetically in a way our choir director would be able to understand, and prepared a translation. I was surprised to discover the "farts" bit ... checked and rechecked my translation, but had to conclude that yes, this is what the text said. I presented the transcription and translation to my teacher, and she quietly stopped having the choir learn it - I'm pretty sure she was put off by the fart bit.

[conuly]

You were learning ME in school at that point? Awesome.

[steorra (from livejournal.com)]

No, not in school.

A) I was home educated. I started playing with Middle English when I was about 11 or 12, though it was mostly a "look at it and see what I can figure out" thing, no actual learning grammar. We had some Middle English books around the house from courses my dad had taken when he was in university.

B) If this was indeed in my grade-12-age year, I was sitting in on a university course on the History of the English Language, which would have added further to my Middle English knowledge.