Portuguese song

[serenita]

Hello,
I need some help to translate these lyrics, please.Beware, it's Old Portuguese... (cheers Kennedy!):
"Hoji ñ'odjal, hoji ñ'odja homi di nha vida, è cenam cu mom, ñ fica sima pomba perdida
Nh'amor bem dam razom di vivi, bem intchi nha vida di cussa fassi
Nhas horas alegri ñ crê passa cu bó, nhas horas tristi ñ crê passa cu bó
Nha passatempo ñ crê passa cu bó, nhámorami ñ nas-ci pam vivi cu bó."

Thank you for any kind of participation.

[Kennedy]

Serenita, sorry I answered you in the wrong place. I forgot I was supposed to reply to your message in the other forum. :-) I'll paste my message here.

--
Hello all again. :-)

Serenita, where did you find that song? It's not modern Portuguese, but a very impressive Old/Archaic Portuguese text. Even I could barely understand anything the first time I read it. Thus, I re-read a few times more carefully and could picture its semantics; only then I could really deduce what each word meant. I had to use comparative linguistics to come up with an answer to most of the words - and it took me a lot of reasoning, believe me. :-)


Well, there you go:

Quote:

"Hoji ñ'odjal, hoji ñ'odja homi di nha vida, è cenam cu mom, ñ fica sima pomba perdida
Nh'amor bem dam razom di vivi, bem intchi nha vida di cussa fassi
Nhas horas alegri ñ crê passa cu bó, nhas horas tristi ñ crê passa cu bó
Nha passatempo ñ crê passa cu bó, nhámorami ñ nas-ci pam vivi cu bó."

I'll translate it into modern Portuguese first:
Hoje não odiais, hoje não odiai o homem de minha vida, é senão comigo, não fica sem a pompa perdida. No amor bem dão razão de viver, bem até na vida de coisas fáceis. Nas horas alegres não se crê passarem convosco, nas horas tristes não se crê passarem convosco. No passar do tempo não se crê que se passe convosco; namora-me, não nasci para viver convosco.


Now, English:
Today ye shall not hate, today thou shall not hate the man of my life, for he is to be but with me, and he shall not stay without his lost pomp. In love, they rightfully praise [the act of] living, which is blissful even in a life of easy accomplishments. In joyful times, one finds hard to believe time can be spent with thee; in saddening times, one finds hard to believe time can be spent with thee. As time goes by, one finds hard to believe time can be spent with thee; stay with me, [although] it is not my destiny to live with thee.


This was quite strenuous to translate (and I don't mean in English, but in Portuguese, really). If you are to paste it to someone from Brazil or Portugal, make sure to explain how the poem was made - Archaic Portuguese, and it denotes a rather strong character of "Cantiga de Amor", which were odes to the ones they loved. They basically show how much they love someone, but at the same time how much they can't be with that person. It's a very fragmented type of art, in the sense that man is divided (precisely what occurred with the Freudian vision upon modern man). Differently from the Classical Characters (Homer's characters, for example), who were born to fulfill a mission (and were therefore archetypes), modern man is fragmented and mourns his internal suffering.

All this to say that someone living in the contemporary world will not get the gist of the meaning presented in that poem unless he understands how it works in the historical background in which it was made. :-)

Hope I could be of help again. :-)

[serenita]

Serenita, sorry I answered you in the wrong place.

Don't worry, i erased the other one.

Serenita, where did you find that song? It's not modern Portuguese, but a very impressive Old/Archaic Portuguese text.

Well, it's from a cd with various artists ("Onda Sonora" Red hot+Lisbon, i think it's an album against aids)...very nice one if you can find it.The singer of this song is Lura.

it took me a lot of reasoning, believe me.

Thank you so much!!

"Cantiga de Amor", which were odes to the ones they loved. It's a very fragmented type of art

I am really impressed..., you know i really thought it was portuguese so i first tried to look for some of the words in my dictionnary, but didn't find any in the beginning of the song...But thank you again, now i realise if i had asked any translator on the freelang site i could have waited long for the answer Or even here, 0 answer in 5 years...!
Just one more thing, this is so interesting, would you agree to help me for the few lines left? I'll send them by private message if you want to help me.THANKS.

[Kennedy]

Hi, Serenita. :-)

Of course I can help. Send it over, I'll try to have it translated for you. :-)

[Luís]

This is not Portuguese, much less Old/Archaic Portuguese.

This is Creole from Cape Verde, a language spoken my several thousands nowadays.

[Kennedy]

This language is really spoken by you? After I read your message I went and browsed through old books I had, which contained old Cantigas de Amor and poems of the sort, and found incredibly similar words and expressions shown here. Even the grammatical structure is quite similar.

If it is really your language, would you be kind enough to provide us with the correct translation for it? I tried to translate it based on comparative linguistics, trying to rebuild words (I used Portuguese, French, Spanish, Rumanian, Italian, Fabla, Basque, Galician and Latin to bring the language into what I believed was a translation).

Thanks for raising your hand there, Luís. We really appreciate your help. :-)

[serenita]

I tried to translate it based on comparative linguistics, trying to rebuild words (I used Portuguese, French, Spanish, Rumanian, Italian, Fabla, Basque, Galician and Latin to bring the language into what I believed was a translation).
Thanks for raising your hand there, Luís.

Yes, thank you Luís.Mamma mia...i feel miserable, although i couldn't suspect it was creole, the song was recorded in Lisbon, and i had no idea it was something else than portuguese ...But i'm happy i came to know the "cantiga de amor", i find it interesting anyway, thank you Kennedy for your efforts and informations.
I'll have to wait for a Cap Verde creole translator now, if i understand?I haven't seen many of them here...

[Luís]

Perhaps you could tell me the name of who sings this song?

Creole was mainly an oral language. It's a mix of Portuguese with african languages. A kind of simplified version of portuguese (namely regarding the verbal system). There are several portuguese creoles throughout africa and even india and southeast asia. One of the most spoken is indeed the Cape Verde creole. It became a written language recently (with its own rules for writing it).

[Guest]

Oh, sorry... I should've have read above

Lura is a young portuguese of cape-verdan origins. Here's an interview with her: http://www.cm-oeiras.pt/Agenda/68/30_di ... evista.htm
(in Portuguese). She explains a bit about her origins and creole.

I don't speak Creole. I'm Portuguese myself. But I can ask a friend to translate it for you. Anyway, it should be more or less what Kennedy has done, though I suspect some details of usage are wrong. For instance I know 'bó' is an all purpose form, not 'vós'. It means 'tu, você', though it comes from 'vós'. It is spelled 'bo'. There are some spelling problems on the text... maybe because the language has a written form only so recently.

Here's a small Creole-Portuguese dictionary: http://www.priberam.pt/dcvpo/

[serenita]

That's great, thank you.Here are all the words:

"Hoji ñ'odjal, hoji ñ'odja homi di nha vida, è cenam cu mom, ñ fica sima pomba perdida
Nh'amor bem dam razom di vivi, bem intchi nha vida di cussa fassi
Nhas horas alegri ñ crê passa cu bó, nhas horas tristi ñ crê passa cu bó
Nha passatempo ñ crê passa cu bó, nhámorami ñ nas-ci pam vivi cu bó.

Bem pegam na mom, bem lebam cu bó, ñ crê bai na bu regass
Bem inchinam, tudo cussa qu'inda ñ ca sabi
Bem lebam cu bó, inchinam tudo quel qui bu prendi na vida
Nh'amor bem dam razom di vivi, bem intchi nha vida di cussa fassi
Ñ sta raserva nha vida pa bó, nhámor a mi ñ nasci pam vivi cu bó

Hó'qui ñ sta cu bó pa mim mundo ca existi máss
Hó'qui ñ sta cu bó mundo feto só di nôs dôs.