Sing a Song of Sixpence

在瓊誼懷孕的時候，我買了這張 BBC 的英文兒歌(Nursery Rhymes and Songs)：



Sing a Song of Sixpence

那時候是覺得，這些東西如果要在台灣買，不但價錢貴上許多，也不知道如何挑選。現在人既然在英國，隨手就可以找到這麼多英文的兒童教材，包括童書、有聲書和童謠 CD，如果不買一些，實在太可惜了：所以在某次出門逛街的時候，在 Princes Street 上的 WHS 買了這張 CD。當時書架上其實還有不少英文童謠 CD，之所以買 Sing a Song of Sixpence，是因為這是 BBC 出的，想來品質應該會比較好，另外曲目中有些童謠有些以前有看到，內容比較接近傳統的英文童謠；其他廠牌的童謠 CD，歌曲似乎是另外撰寫的。

碇恩出生了以後，也有放過幾次給他聽。不過那時候他還太小，每天只知道喝奶跟睡覺，中間清醒玩耍的時間不多。喝奶的時候，也不能放給他聽，因為他會不專心喝(還有一陣子厭奶，更不能吵他)。

最近想起來要放這張 CD，是上次去 office 辦的 Santa's Groto。聖誕老公公帶著現場的小朋友唱了兩次 Jingle Bells 和其他的聖誕歌曲。回家吃晚飯的時候，突然發現他會發出 Ba Ba 的音，跟著哼 Jingel Bells，我們才發現他其實會跟著哼歌！所以現在讓他在客廳地上邊爬邊玩的時候，都會放這張 CD，看看他會不會跟著學會哼兒歌！

很多童謠其實小時候有聽過唱過，不過都是配上中文歌詞的版本，所以這些英文兒歌對我們兩個來說都不熟悉。英文歌詞光聽有些就聽不懂，更不用說跟著唱了。後來試著上 Youtube 找童謠的影片，發現有些有配上歌詞，但是也不是每一首都有，如果要每一首都找，其實也蠻累的。

今天在網路上搜尋童謠歌詞的時候，發現有這個童謠網站：

Bussongs.com

不但有英文歌詞，還有童謠的歷史來源介紹，更有連結到 Youtube 的影片！實在非常方便！

所以就把 BBC Sing a Song of Sixpence 裡面所有的童謠列出，配上在 Bussongs.com 的連結，這樣以後自己也方便找歌詞和影片：

Track 1

1. Sing a Song of Sixpence

2. Girls and Boys Come out to Play

3. London Bridge is Falling Down

Track 2

4. Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone

5. Jack and Jill

6. Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Track 3

7. Hey Diddle Diddle the Cat and the Fiddle

8. I Saw Three Ships

9. Pease Porridge Hot

10. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

Track 4

11. Tom He Was A Piper's Son

12. Little Boy Blue, Come Blow Your Horn

Track 5

13. Wee Willie Winkie

14. One, Two, Buck My Shoes

15. Humpty Dumpty

Track 6

16. Bye Baby Bunting

17. Hot Cross Buns

18. The North Wind Doth Blow

Track 7

19. Itsy Bitsy Spider

20. See, Saw, Marjorie Daw

21. The Grand Old Duke of York

22. Little Tommy Tucker

Tracker 8

23. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Track 9

24. Pop Goes the Weasel

25. Rock-a-Bye Baby on the Tree Top

26. Oranges and Lemons

Track 10

27. I Had A Little Nut Tree

28. Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

29. The Farmer in The Dell

30. Jack Sprat

Track 11

31. Three Blind Mice

32. Cock A Doodle Doo

33. Baa Baa Black Sheep

Track 12

34. Ladybird Ladybird

35. Simple Simon

36. Ride A Cock Horse

Track 13

37. Dance to Your Daddy

38. I Love Little Pussy

39. Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake Baker's Man

Track 14

40. Little Jack Horner

41. Who Killed Cock Robin?

Track 15

42. This Little Pig

43. Tom Tom the Piper's Son

44. Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly

45. Hickory Dickory Dock

Track 16

46. Polly Put the Kettle on

47. Little Bo Peep

Track 17

48. There Was A Frog

49. There Was A Crooked Man

50. Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Track 18

51. Curly Locks

52. Doctor Foster

53. Three Little Kittens

54. London's Burning

Track 19

55. Goodey Goosey Gander

56. Goergie Porgie

57. Ding-Dong Bell

Track 20

58. The Cuckoo Is A Witty Bird

59. Ring-a-Ring o'Roses

60. Muffin Man


附註：Bussongs.com 上有些歌曲名稱和歌詞和 BBC 有所不同。London's Burnging 在 Bussongs.com 上面找不到，以後有空的時候，再上別的童謠網站找找看。
31/12 Edit: 修正 Humpty Dumty 的錯誤連結
2/1 Edit: 今天發現整張 CD 有 60 首歌，CD 背面只有 28 首；只好一首一首聽聽看是什麼歌；今天聽到 Tracker 7
3/1 Edit 今天全部聽完了；也些在 Bussongs 裏找不到

Dean says "Bye-bye"!!

Dean, who is now only 9 months old, has learnt to say "Bye-bye"!!

Chiung-Yi bought this ball from Car Boot Sale when he was very young and not able to crawl very well. Actually we don't remember how old he was then. However, when Chiung-Yi brought the ball home on that Sunday morning and showed him on the carpet of sitting room, he feared the ball which was rolling around on the ground so much that he crawled backwards to get away from it as much as he can and, of course, cried out loud.

After that, Chiung-Yi put the ball into a storage box and we plan to take it out someday, maybe one day he will enjoy playing the ball. But we don't know when he will be at that time.

We recently took the ball out and find that now he is not afraid of the ball anymore. Sometimes I find him pushing the ball and pushing the bottons and he seems to enjoy it. One day last week, which day I don't remember, when I was in the sitting room with him crawling on the ground as part of our daily routine after dinner, he suddenly said something sounds like "Bye-bye" in a small voice. I wasn't so sure but after a few days, he said that again.

I was happy but I didn't realise how important it is thus I didn't tell Chiung-Yi at the very moment. Last Saturday when we are both in the sitting room, he says "Bye-bye" again. Chiung-Yi was on top of the world because she soon realise that this is his first word!

We decided to play the BBC nursery rhymes CD everyday and see if he can sing one song or two someday. And now he seems to be able to hum a few notes!!

The ball from which he learns to say "Bye-bye": VTech Crawl and Learn Bright Lights Ball

English names: 取英文名

辦公室裡有個印度人名叫 Chirag。每次有客戶打電話來，他的名字都會被叫錯。有人叫他「傑羅」、「加拉」。其實正確的發音應該叫「奇拉(格)」。

我們都笑說，他每個星期都會換一個新的名字。

其實不只我們的名字會被以英語為母語的英國人講錯。我們辦公室還有巴基斯坦來的同事，我也是要問過他們名字怎麼念才會發音。辦公室裡還有非洲來的同事，他們的母語雖然不是英語，但是和馬來西亞或新加坡一樣，當地通用的商業語言多半就是英文，因此他們在母國的 office 就直接用英文名。

大部分的「英文名」多是從聖經裡面來的或是聖人的名字舊約聖經用希伯來文寫的，新約聖經是用希臘文描寫耶穌當時的故事，但故事主角還都是猶太人。所以絕大多數的「英文」名其實是猶太人的「希伯來」名。而天主教的聖人的名字多半原來是拉丁文。

如果說採用英文名是會讓「外國」朋友覺得不雅或恥笑，那我們也可以笑這些西方人怎麼都用一些猶太人的「希伯來」名或「拉丁」名。我們用英文名的原因，和西方人採用這些「希伯來名」或「拉丁名」一樣，只是一個文化變遷的過程。只是恰好在這個年代，我們屬於弱勢文化的一方，或許有些人會覺得反感。但這並不表示取英文名就是有什麼錯，西方人可不覺得他們取「希伯來名」或「拉丁名」有什麼不對。

有些人覺得我們應該講閩南語，拒用英文名，堅持自己的本土文化。但是當代的歐洲人多半是羅馬帝國時期蠻族的後裔，這裡卻未曾見過說要保留原來「蠻族」文化，倡議取各族傳統名字的說法。相反地，受到過去兩千年來基督教的影響，現在聖經才是他們的「傳統」文化。回到台灣來說，閩南語是我們的母語；據說閩南語是唐代安史之亂南下的中原漢人的母語。但是台灣有多少人真的有當時中原漢人血統？我們的血統裡面有多少來自是唐代以後居住在閩南一帶土著，又有多少來自台灣原住民？如果要以血統來論何謂「傳統」文化，其實沒有意義。進一步來說，所謂「傳統」文化，只是有些人認為的傳統，不是真的傳統，也不是所有的人都認同的傳統。

現在用的 Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary 裡，就提到說:

It is easy to dismiss ELF (English as a lingua franca) as the use of 'incorrect' English by people who have not learned it very well, but it is an entirely natural linguistic development, an example of how any language varies and changes as it is appropriated by different communities of users. As this development is described and recognized, features of ELF will inevitably find their way into future dictionaries of current English. (http://www.univie.ac.at/voice)

取英文名不是說英語的人的專利；亞洲和非洲通行的英文用法，也不能說就是不正確的英文。英語文化很早就不限於英國本土了。 我們可以愛怎麼取英文名就怎麼取英文名，這不是錯誤的英文，只是不一樣的英文。

What summer?

There was a fire evacuation drill in the office yesterday morning. All the people in the office gather on the street. I was chatting with Chirag, an Indian who has been living in Edinburgh for more than 2 years:

Chirag : "How do you find the summer?"

I: "??"

Indian: "Do you notice that it is summer now?"

I : "Is it summer?"

Andrew, who is from Zambia in the Africa and has been here for more than 1 year, said: "What summer?"

Temprature yesterday morning: 12 degrees centigrade high.

British Culture of Food

根據語言學校老師的說法，fish and chips 並非 British 傳統料理，正統的傳統料理也並非像現在口耳相傳這般沒有變化。

UK 飲食文化改變，主要是在 WWII 以後。UK 在 WWII 期間極端缺乏食物，大部分的人口都依賴政府發放的配給券維生；但 WWII 以後，這個情況也沒有改變：因為德國戰敗以後被盟軍分區接管，UK 佔領了西德最大的一區；而德國經過 WWII 和盟軍的轟炸，殘破不堪，短期內未能恢復元氣，農產品也無法自給自足，於是 UK 只好把 UK 本土生產的農產品運到德國，養活佔領區內的德國人，UK 本土的英國人在食物不足的情況下，戰後仍因此繼續依賴政府配給。從 WWII 開始到 1950 年代中期，British 都依賴政府配給的糧食過活，很多傳統料理在缺乏食材的情況下失傳，造成現在 fish and chips 成為英國最有名氣的料理的局面。

前幾個星期看 the guardian 的週末雜誌 FOOD MONTHLY，讀到專訪 Jamie Oliver 和他的 "Ministry of Food" project，雖然對於傳統料理失傳未能多加描述，但對於現在英國中下階層的飲食文化卻有很有趣的評論。

簡單來說，如果我的理解沒有錯的話，Jamie Oliver 設立的 Minitry of Food 很像是社區的烹飪教室：他訓練幾個社區裡有興趣的民眾，這些民眾再去教他的朋友或家人，期待能將料理和飲食文化用老鼠會的方式傳遞給 British。

在這篇專訪裡面，對於現代 British 飲食文化，Jamie Oliver 說：

"...it confirmed that there is a new type of poverty. They've got walls, they've got heating, they've got a rain-tight house; they've got a plasma screen, a Sky box, mobile phonesa dn Nike trainers. But they'll sit on the floor and eat out of Styrofoam boxes seven days a week. There's an oven in there that's quite good, but that never get used. There's a new type of poverty, and it's fucking knowledge poverty..."

專訪的記者 Rachel Cooke 也下了很有趣的評論：

"...most commentators either focus on poverty and ignore the plasma screens for fear of weakening their own liberal arguments or, in the manner of Richard Littlejohn, they see only the plasma screens and so are able to walk guiltlessly away from issues such as child obesity, muttering the words 'feckless' and 'benefit cultures' as they do so..."

從飲食文化的改變論及 British 社會階層的差異和 poverty，this is a big jump。但也不能說 Jamie Oliver 或 Rachel Cooke 的論點沒有道理。錢可以解決的，都不是什麼大問題。當飲食文化的貧乏無法以金錢來解釋的時候，甚至無法以金錢來解決的時候，這才是真正的問題。