Talk:Frère Jacques

How about an audio recordings of the song?

I was just thinking, that as readers of the English Wikipedia might not necessarily know the correct pronounciation of the French version, how about a proper recording be made, especially if done by a fluent speaker of French. --Mike (talk) 06:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Grew up in a small farm town in Indiana some 50-60 years ago and even I was taught the correct pronounciation in like kindergarten, so suspect this isn't really a problem especially in a world with the Internet, You Tube, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:801:4280:A710:6D24:37D2:4CDC:A41E (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Versions

What are the thoughts regarding the theory sections? I'd like to cut them. NonvocalScream (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Manual of Style

This needs some work as well, I'm going to research the MOS later tonight and edit the article unless someone gets there first on MOS style. Not my strong suit, but I'm teachable. Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 20:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

James; not John

The English equivalent of Jacques is James, not John.

• Jacques = James
• Jean = John

I have corrected the literal translation to reflect this fact.

I do not know why the name was changed to John in the English lyrics. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 00:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Surely a more accurate translation would be Jacques == Jack? Wictionary lists Jack's etymology as being an Anglicised version of Jacques, and as the names sound so similar it would make more sense to use Jack in the translation. Discuss. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.11.4.28 (talk) 13:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

There's not a lot to discuss. Jacques = James. There are plenty of references [1] and Wikipedia examples [2], including the La Bible du Semeur (French translation of the Bible) that clearly show that James is the proper translation of Jacques. "Jack" and "Jake" are common phonetic mistakes among English speakers thinking that "Jacques" sounds like one of the other two, so it "must be the name." While some people named Jacques may be called Jack or Jake by English-speaking friends, but that doesn't form the basis of an accurate translation. Seeing as this song is originally a French song, a literal translation of the name is warranted. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 15:31, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

It's true, Jacques = Jacob = James and isn't related to the English name Jack. Interestingly, the English names Jack is short for Jackin, which was Johnkin - a diminutive of John. Now whether the person who wrote the popular English translation knew that or not I have no idea. They probably just consciously changed it to John because they thought it sounded better. eyeball226 (talk) 12:37, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

John sort of ryhmes with dong JayBirdtyper (talk) 18:23, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

And James does not JayBirdtyper (talk) 18:23, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Inaccurate translation

The littoral translation of this song is not dark like the information page suggests. "Matins" is a time of prayer, and the song gives example to Brother Jacques who has overslept, and failed to ring the bells for Matins or Mass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arneb04 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC) This came about from medieval times before the invention of the mechanical clock when the Church controlled time. This story can be found in a book by David Landes called "The Wealth and Povety of Nations" Pg. 30 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arneb04 (talk • contribs) 17:43, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Possible origins

'Frère Jacques could possibly be a mistranslation; e.g. a small blotch on an original piece or score misinterpreted as an accent, which could have meant that it was originally called Frere Jacques (Brother James in English). It could have been composed by someone as a song for their brother Jacques, as a birthday present etc.'

How many people who were not a brother in the sense of a religious community would actually be given the task of ringing bells for Matins? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.11.4.28 (talk) 13:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

note about possible origin :

- in french "(a) Jacques" is representative name for a peasant and a "jacquerie" 
  a peasant riot.
- the modern rebels occupy broadcast building, the olds jacques seizes bells 
  to communicate from village to village in so-called bells langage.
- the underlaying meaning of song is somewhat like : stand up, take up arms!
- in same way "(a) Jean" is a name for the simple-minded of the village

i apologize for my poor english...

---

camo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.240.128.125 (talk) 20:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't really understand the thing about the possible accidental accent. With the accent 'Frère' still means brother both in the literal sense and the religious sense. eyeball226 (talk) 12:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Another possible origin is that "Jacques" is the name of a church bell, as the translated song goes: Brother Jacques Brother Jacques Do you sleep? Do you sleep?

Ring in the morning Ring in the morning ding dang dong x2

I personally think this implies that Jacques is a church bell. Being in a church, the bell would be called "brother", and the bells in the Chapel of Notre Dame all have individual names. MKay20 (talk) 21:52, 13 March 2017 (UTC)MKay20

Is there a reliable source that has discussed this? DonIago (talk) 05:34, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Bioshock video game

Are the alternate lyrics used in the game "Bioshock", sung by one of the "little sister" characters, notable enough to be placed on this page? The lyrics in question are "Mister Bubbles, Mister bubbles/Are you there? Are you there?/Come and give me lollies, come and bring me toffees/Teddy bears, teddy bears". 216.82.142.13 (talk) 22:27, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Pedantry

"The song Frère Jacques has been translated into many languages with variations on the original lyrics." -- Is it really necessary to cite sources on this page, when the linked page, Alternative lyrics to Frère Jacques, has many sources itself? Do we really need to back up the "has been translated into many languages" claim with journalistic sources? Does the wiki link to a hundred examples not count? I'm removing the fact template. If anyone wants to revert feel free; but seriously, this is just silly. 24.68.73.192 (talk) 03:43, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Translations should not produce gibberish

Even a literal translation should not produce gibberish. Translating "Sonnez les matines!" as "Sound the mornings!" is absolutely gibberish; the phrase "Sound the mornings!" has no conceivable English meaning. "Les matines" in the context of "sonnez" refers to the church bells that rang to announce the canonical hour of "matines" ("matins" in English.) See Wikipedia itself at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matines and Larousse at http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/french-english/matines/49781.

In order to provide a literal translation without resorting to gibberish, I would suggest simply "Ring the morning bells!" A quick Google Books check shows that this phrase has already been used several times to translate this lyric, as well as being used in other contexts.

So, that being said, I'm going to go ahead and make the change. At the very least this note will show why.

Poihths (talk) 00:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to make another change to "ring the matins chimes," which avoids both gibberish and mistranslation, as well as keeping a somewhat poetic tone. (Compare "Ding Dong Merrily on High.") I'll also remove the note regarding the non-literal aspect. ExpatSalopian (talk) 23:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Polly wants a cracker, Polly wants a cracker. So do you, so do you?198.71.29.39 (talk) 00:59, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

What happened to the associated article listing translations and versions?

I am constantly astounded by the rampages of the "deletionists" on WP. Tremendous effort was expended by dozens of people over several years to collect this material. And unless someone is constantly guarding the articles on WP, they get deleted so it looks "tidy".

Look, more than 90% of the material on WP is poorly written. But it has one saving grace; it slowly gets better with time. However, when self-righteous buffoons delete perfectly material, this just discourages contributors. Why even bother?

I used to edit a lot on WP, but so many deletionists and others threatened me and my friends so often, that I just slowed down my efforts. And when I come to one of my favorite collection of articles and see that it has basically been savaged in the name of "purity and neatness", I am disgusted.

The number of people who contribute on WP has been dropping steadily. Does anyone ever draw a connection between the abuse of contributors and the drop in participation?

It looks like the related translations article had been removed by this edit on December 7, 2012. I find it amazing that there is now a notice that we should expand this article using material from the Dutch article (apparently placed there on October in 2011, which sounds a bit hard to believe for me). The material in the Dutch article is nothing more than a very small subset of what was originally here on English WP, that has now been deleted. What an outrage!

--Filll (talk | wpc) 20:47, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggest you review the unanimous AFD before going off on a rant. Did you by any chance request review, or were you more concerned with venting about it, given that you also went to ANI over the matter? BTW, the link you provided points to the old version of the article...it would have been helpful if you had, instead, pointed to the diff. And the person who removed the link and indeed the article itself was acting based on consensus, so blaming them is inappropriate. Cheers. Doniago (talk) 21:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

What a welcoming environment WP has evolved into! You should feel very proud of yourselves. Not much different than the death threats and other threats that lead to me dialing down my partipation a few years ago.--Filll (talk | wpc) 22:06, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Did you really just compare an admittedly mildly snarky post (but then, you snarked first) to death threats? Wow. Doniago (talk) 23:10, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• have restored the last version of the article to my userspace at User:Maunus/Frerejacques. I do agree with the consensus of the AfD that translations like these do not belong in an encyclopedia. But yu can see it in my userspace and copy it somewhere else if you like. For example to wikiquote. I will keep it for a week. Best.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - Upset and drama at ANI notwithstanding after looking at the article and the AfD, that was in my view either an incompetent AfD or (equally possible, I have no prior view) the AfD guidelines themselves are flawed. What was deleted was a sub-article fork of a high notability article Frère Jacques and contrary to the nomination the subject is not only notable in its own right, a quick GB search would have quickly shown that notability - for example it took me 10 seconds to find Proceedings National Association for Multicultural Education 1993 - Page 84 "... for example Frere Jacques in several languages; " and several similar. Evidently this song has some notability for its translations. Not knowing much about multicultural nursery education I have no way of knowing whether a dozen other songs don't have similar multicultural/multilingual educational totem status as this one, but for the purposes of an AfD review the existence - and easy findability - of these sources justify an AfD review in my view (not to mention that it also suggests justifying a restore and improvement of the article). In ictu oculi (talk) 03:05, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The deletion may have been unwarranted, but I think it would be better to AGF here. At a glance it looks like the deletion discussion was unanimous and your concerns were simply never brought up. But as you said, there are ways of getting the deletion reversed if editors feel that should be pursued. Doniago (talk) 05:06, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

At a glance the original article strikes me as being a list of translations with no evidence that any of the translations...or the fact of the translations themselves...are particularly significant. I've seen "list" articles like this before, and usually they fall afoul of WP:INDISCRIMINATE. It may be worth pointing out that that link specifically mentions "lyrics databases". It's quite possibly something that can be salvaged, but I can also see why the discussion went the way it did. If there's a sincere interest in reviving the article, I might recommend establishing specific criteria for inclusion. Cheers. Doniago (talk) 05:19, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Doniago, one can AGF and still say exactly verbatim what I said above, and will say again if necessary. As far as list articles go, maybe we can all compare List of paintings by Georges Emile Lebacq which was broken out of the artist article and ask how would that fare in the same process? Differently? Why?

In any case, what's the next step. Can the article be restored, or does someone need to first open a deletion review? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:51, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't strike me as AGF...or at least, diplomatic...to bring up "incompetence"...unless there's strong evidence in favor of such a claim. I don't believe the article you linked to is any better. Of course, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS; I'd be curious to see how that one would fare if there was an AFD filing. But to the point, I'd recommend WP:UNDELETE as it doesn't appear that the AFD was especially controversial. You may need to go through WP:Deletion review instead though. I'm not especially familiar with these processes, but hopefully this helps. Doniago (talk) 07:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Doniago,

OK. But you might want to review your "rant" response to Filll. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:17, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Given Filll's tone when they came here and the fact that they immediately brought the matter to ANI...in other words, they didn't wait for anyone to respond here, nor attempt to contact anyone who was involved with the AFD...I don't think the tone of my response was especially disproportionate. And frankly when they proceeded to compare my admittedly-snarky-but-nevertheless-attempting-to-be-helpful response to a death threat? Yeah, not so inclined to review anything I said to them. It's honestly hard for me to tell whether or not they even genuinely wanted help, given the tone they chose to adopt...to me they seemed at least as concerned with simply venting without having any interest in a productive outcome.

In any event, I'm not planning to get involved with this further at this point as I'm not sure there's anything productive left to be said, but you're welcome to contact me if you feel I may be of assistance. Cheers. Doniago (talk) 13:56, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment One of the reasons I've got more involved with Wikipedia over the past year is because I've seen complaints exactly like the one Filll brought up here. We regulars easily miss it, but our policies are not obvious or common sense, and getting people unfamiliar with them to understand them is hard. When you take that into account, it's perfectly understandable that Filll was upset, and shouting policy shortcuts at him is counterproductive. (When I have time, I might write an "incivility" companion to WP:DOLT, which explains that incivility can come from a lack of familiarity and understanding than any animosity).

I see two problems here. Firstly, it doesn't seem to be widely known that, bar severe exceptions such as copyright violations or attack pages, an admin will generally restore a deleted page into userspace. Secondly, the deletion discussion that Doniago linked to wasn't particularly useful or helpful, in my view. I read it, and I understood why the article was deleted, but only because I'm familiar with the policies involved. To attempt to explain, your article was well written, and it was sourced, but we generally don't store entire song lyrics on Wikipedia, but put them in one of our sister projects instead. In this case, I would use Wikisource - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Portal:Song_lyrics would be a suitable place to move the article. Once there, we can add the lyrics as a "see also" link from this article. None of your work gets lost, and those who are concerned about WP's policies are not affected. Everybody wins. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Filll's been editing since 2009; they're not a new editor. I'm reasonably sure that in this case they are familiar with the pertinent policies, though I could be wrong. FWIW. Doniago (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

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Repeating two-measure sections

In the second "sheet music" graphic, would it be helpful to indicate that each two-measure section is to be repeated? I think the song is invariably sung that way, and that's how it's done in the two recordings. Ishboyfay (talk) 22:21, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, but there is no sheet music at c:Category:Frère Jacques showing repeats in the round notation. Either someone uploads such a file to Commons, or someone creates it here with LilyPond, or a caption mentioning the repeats is added to the existing image. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Theory of origin factual error

In the Theory of Origin section, it was stated that "Francesca Draughon and Raymond Knapp argue that "Frère Jacques" was originally a song to taunt Jews or Protestants or Martin Luther.

According to the source cited, they actually argue that Gustave Mahler's use of the childish nursery's melody in his symphoy more than 200 years after the original song was composed has that effect, not that the song "Frère Jacques" was originally intended this way at all.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:fa49:cc20:8c00:6012:c5b8:11ff:c929 (talk • contribs)

References