Linguaphile wrote:Johanna’s comments earlier got me thinking about music used for funerals and for types of other ceremonies.
They got me thinking about the fact that the tune of "Clementine" is used as a funereal song among (some?) Malayalee Christians. Then I realized that a lot of American lullabies/kids' songs have some pretty terrifying lyrics.
Anyway, here are some Christmas songs in Malayalam and Tamil. In Kerala, Christmas is very much seen as a Christian holiday. This is an unreleased version of a Christmas medley from the 1985 movie
Nokketha Doorathu Kannum Nattu. The first song in the medley is the Malayalam version of "O Holy Night," the last is the Malayalam version of "Silent Night" (omitted from the movie itself), and just before that is a modified version of "Jingle Bells" (at least partly in English). I have never heard the other songs anywhere else, so I guess those are original compositions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J71_6HTRlOMThis is a lyric video of the Malayalam version of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" performed by a
Mar Thoma church choir (this is the same denomination that my family associates itself with although my parents, my brother, and I are all atheist):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFCR4fxFgg This is another lyric video from the same YouTube channel for the Malayalam version of "O Come, All Ye Faithful":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7FrDl8o1AgThis is another lyric video of a song that our hymn book suggests was also translated from English, but I have no idea whether there really is an English version or not. My dad sometimes sings this song while working (most of the songs he sings are hymns although he's atheist since he claims not to know many other songs). In Malayalam, it's called "Nararodathisneham Poondu," meaning something like 'Bearing Great Love for Mankind':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiOMSKG4I3IThis is a video of a choir in Salalah, Oman, singing another Christmas song in Malayalam called "Maattin Thozhuthil Piranninnaal" that our hymn book also suggests was translated from English. This time, I'm a little more confident in saying this is a lie because I looked it up online last year and found someone claiming that it was composed a little over a hundred years ago, possibly by someone from the village where my dad spent his childhood:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hcOT56ae28"Sthuthi Chol" is a Christmas song (not listed in our hymn book) that I had to sing on my own for the local Malayalee association, with my brother playing an electric piano, within two years after we moved here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kJbzrEDl38"Sthuthippin Naam Modamaay" is another (also not listed) that I sang within a few years after that, at another Malayalee Christmas function, with two other people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2RR2L8ClvMThis is another song listed in the hymn book called "Yesu Innu Janichu" (Jesus Was Born Today) performed in Doha, Qatar. The hymn book tries to link this ultimately to "Wonderful Words of Life," but I don't think that has the same tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RF1FUO5U5IAnd another called "Raajaraaja Daivaraajan," performed in Houston (come to think of it, I think that's a relative of mine, in the second row from the bottom, third from the left). The hymn book doesn't claim this song to be translated from English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmp5ReQBYGQThis is a different version of the same song by two movie/playback singers, with a completely different tune and slightly different lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9R_VjSlyn8This is the same song but in Tamil, I think probably by the same two singers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZKaXVMFTMwThis is a slightly fancy and shorter version of the next hymn listed in our hymn book, "Athimangala Kaaranane," with somewhat different lyrics I'm not entirely sure make any sense.
Apparently, this tune was inspired by North Indian classical music(?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDq6aMDfzaMThis is another version of the same song with a slightly different tune:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8xDsE-BzE4And this is the Tamil version of the same song (there is a Tamil version with the other tune, too) sung by a playback singer from Andhra Pradesh named Jikki, who sang a number of songs in Tamil IIRC and at least one song in Malayalam in 1960. Apparently, it's originally a Tamil song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tPKfuV1yO8