Ja, Ja, Ja! ("Yaw, Yaw, Yaw!") [504-505] (372-373)

One has to remember that this is a pump chantey to properly contextualize the cornball nature of it -- nowadays we're probably more able to laugh AT it than with it! The humor is quite old fashioned, some would say mildly offensive in these times (although I doubt the generally good-natured Dutch would really care), but this sort of goofball thing was to counteract the drudgery of the pumping task.

It is in "pseudo-Dutch," as Hugill calls it -- really just a fake, parody tongue, a pidgin of English and German-like lingo. Doerflinger, who also collected a version from Capt. Patrick Tayluer, noted that English-speaking sailors called just about any person who "said 'ja' for 'yes'" as "Dutch" -- except for actual Dutchmen! (called "Holland Dutch"); we are in the realm of the "Deutsch" confusion that comes into play with "Pennsylvania Dutch" for example.

Perhaps ironically (perhaps not), the performers that sing this one most are the "shantykoor" and "shantychor" from Northern Europe -- Nederlanders and Germans. They often perform it in the expanded version, printed by Hugill in his later texts, opening with the line "Mein vader vos ein Dutchman." Hugill's version in Shanties from The Seven Seas (1961) is very similar to what Doerflinger collected, but in his later, popular texts (1969, 1977) he has spruced it up, normalizing the melody and adding verses.

Actually a bit like a children's silly song or a rugby song, this was supposed to be "obscene throughout"; my version, based in both Hugill's and Doerflinger's, removes a little bit of their "camouflaging."

This being the only "Dutch" chantey in the present text, albeit "pseudo-", it was appropriate to match it with these images I took of the replica 18th century Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship, THE AMSTERDAM, in Amsterdam's Oosterdok.

Please check out the whole chanteys project playlist, at
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=58B55DD66F22060C

Category:

Music

Tags:

• ja
• fake
• dutch
• sea
• shanty
• german
• amsterdam
• oosterdok
• deutsch
• ship
• netherlands
• chanteys
• sailor
• zeeman

[lemieldemai]

this is so random...



[hultonclint]

@lemieldemai :) Not random -- very deliberate! It's one in a series of chanties that I am recording.

[dingendoener]

video in holland, songtext is german/penn german... funny how often we get mixed up with our neighbours.

[hultonclint]

@dingendoener Yes! Ja! ha ha...The mix-up is intentional. The language isn't really German, but rather the funny English imagination of what "those languages on the North Sea" sound like (to "us")! It's supposed to sound like probably Plattdeutsch or Nedersaksisch, but be fully comprehensible to English.

[raymondcrooke]

Great video, Ranzo, and the commentary was very interesting. I'll be putting up a song soon (not a chantey, though) called "Madely Wilsh du Heira" which appears to be pseudo-Dutch. I can't find any information about it, but there is a lot of "Ja, ja, ja" and "Nein, nein, nein." I gather from what you wrote that there is a tradition of such songs, though it's the only example I've come across before this one.

[hultonclint]

Even though one is "French" and is "German," "Madamoiselle..." reminded me of this. Partly because of the hinky/dinky(stinky) and inkum/stinkum. I'll be very interested to hear that other song when you eventually post it. I have heard of some more songs of this ilk, it it may film in some gaps. thanks