May Street Tapes - Good Night Prayers. Ojcze nasz, Our Father

Marty converted family audiotape to .mp3 sound files for us. This one is JPZ's recording of Johnny saying his prayers.

First up, from 0:00 to 0:54, is the Our Father. Towards the end we hear his mother's, Eleanor's, voice, as she helps him read, or perhaps recall from memory, ale, meaning "but" - as in "but deliver us from evil."

from the blog of Nikki Prša

The Gospel writers describe, in Matthew 6 and in Luke 11, Christ teaching his followers to pray with him to their mutual divine Father. Hence the name "The Lord's Prayer".

This prayer has been translated into quite a few languages; here we take a look at the Polish.

niebo, neuter noun, "the sky", "heaven";

w niebie, locative case, "in heaven";

niebieski, adjective, "blue", "heavenly", "celestial";   etymology niebo + ski, hence "from or of the sky or the heavens";

król, masculine noun, "crown";

królestwo, neuter noun, "kingdom";

naszym winowajcom, from masculine noun winowajca, "culprit", "wrongdoer", the dative case, hence "forgive of us the wrongdoer-ness".  I suppose. How do normal people spend their time? I spend a lot of time puzzling over little mysteries of this kind.

zły, masculine noun, "evil", "badness", "anger";
złego, the genitive singular, "of or from evil".

So, John, have you any memories of this recording session? Were you reading or reciting?

Which was your first language, English or Polish? Usually there is a very first language in a person's life.

Some years ago we heard a story from friends about a clinical psychology case in which a child did not speak. Clinical detective work revealed that the parents wanted to help their firstborn learn languages, so Mom spoke to the child always in one language, and Dad always in another. Well! The child became convinced that each person had to invent his own language. The project was understandably taking him some time.

Next post, I don't know what to do, so I'll just make a Hail Mary Pass.  Har! Har!

If you are reading this in email, please visit the blog website and let us have your comments in the comment box at the bottom of the post. 

At the website, you can go to the right sidebar and find a long alphabetic list of search terms, called in Blogger "labels". You can search, for example, on "Eleanor" or "Johnny" to retrieve all posts bearing those labels.

This is the second "May Street Tapes" post. The first one is here.

May Street Tapes - The Three Bears

Marty saved audiotape that originated in May Street, on his Dziadzi's, our JPZ's, reel-to-reel tape recorder. Who remembers JPZ's tape recorders, or can find an image of a similar machine? I only recall Marty's reel-to-reel from the 1960s.

Today's sound file is of a recording that must be from the 1950s. John, can you pin down a date range perhaps?

Marty performed some complicated and exacting procedure involving a tape player and some fancy borrowed sound equipment to convert audio signal to digital, and transmitted results to me in .mp3 file format. Thanks, Marty!  Here is presented the first sound file, in which JPZ reads fairy tales to his youngest, Johnny.

Clicking the link below will take you to the SoundCloud site. Email me privately for the password.

May Street Tape - Three Bears by jzdro | Free Listening on SoundCloud

Alternatively, you can listen by clicking the Play icon within the embedded file below.

It starts out with the conclusion of Little Red Riding Hood. Then JPZ proposes to read the next tale, pronouncing the title as Tree Bears. The Polish language has no th sound at all. If Polish is your first language, your baby tongue, you are going to maintain normal speed of your English speech by making a quick substitution for th with either t or d. After all, there's stuff to do, right?

A related idea is suggested when JPZ says here she comes. Polish nouns are marked for gender. You just do not issue a noun from your mouth until you have inflected it properly for gender. No gender specified for the English noun story? Nie ma problem! The Polish equivalent is historia, a feminine noun. So there you go: here she comes.

What an interesting old story. Three this, three that, three times: a 3x3 matrix.

Fascinatingly, the predator species and the prey species change places. First, the bears are vulnerable when their home is invaded. The listener is invited to feel empathy for them, even unto hearing Baby Bear plaintively ask the lassie to stay and play. But at the end Goldilocks runs, and stays away. The take-home message is that bears may be furry and cute and have families like you do, and it is good to be empathetic,  but don't mess with bears.  That is wisdom from the ancestors, all right.

At 4:40, JPZ opens the cabinet of the grandfather clock he made. You can hear him adjusting the hands to a certain hour. Thank you, Marty, for bringing to us the sound of that grandfather clock striking the hour.

From 5:57, JPZ sings the Good Night song!  I understand only about half of it. John, can you come up with a transcription and translation?  Tłumacz and also Wikisłownik  are your friends in this!

Well, family, please comment with your impressions and questions. If you are reading this in email, please go to Gene and Clar's and comment in the comment box at the bottom of the post. Thanks for reading.