Linguaphile wrote:Is it the same with entten tentten teelikamentten (mostly nonsense with some real words thrown in)?
No, it's 100% nonsense with no real words at all except the final 'I'll leave this game now'. This article says it's probably a "Finnicized" version of a German rhyme: the idea is that kids who didn't know any German heard the rhyme and tried to copy it. There's for example this one:
Entel tentel,
Zwei Regimentel
Gehn zu Tische,
Fangen Fische,
Zuckerkönig los!
And:
Endchen tendchen,
zwei kleine Männchen
gehen zu Tisch
fangen ein Fisch,
1, 2, 3,
und du bist frei
Compare with Finnish:
Entten tentten teelikamentten
Hissun kissun vaapula vissun
Eelin keelin klot
Viipula vaapula vot
Eskon saun piun paun
Nyt mä lähden tästä pelistä pois
Puh, pah, pelistä pois
(This is the one we used. The article I linked has different versions of the same rhyme on the second page, if you're interested.)
Edit: here is a link to a longer version of the lyrics, which begins with ussa pussa, ussa maru, sina oled mängus karu (you are a bear in the game) and ends with trips, traps, trull, sina oled kull! (you are a hawk). It's also interesting that in place of kibe käsi it has kipe käis, which doesn't mean anything, but rhymes better with tipe poiss. You can almost imagine someone seeing it written and thinking "that must be a typo, we should change it to kibe käsi..."
Also, this way of counting in that second version makes me smile: üki, kaki, kommi, nenni, viide, kuude. (For those here who don't know Estonian, the numbers in Estonian are üks, kaks, kolm, neli, viis, kuus.)
Ooh, thanks!
I like those numbers too. Toddlers often count like that in Finnish.