Re: Tonal Songs and glossalalia

At 7:48 pm -0400 14/4/99, Steg Belsky wrote:
>On Wed, 14 Apr 1999 12:19:46 +0300 Dan Sulani
><dnsulani@...> writes:
>>        (Does polylingual poetry exist? (I'm not including sticking in
>>_phrases_ from one language into the
>>         text of another lang. I mean switching languages in the
>>middle
>>of a statement, if not the middle of a sentence.))
>>
>>Dan Sulani
>
>Yup....i don't know whether there's some kind of "polylingual poetry"
>genre, but it doesn't seem like such an unusual idea.
You're right - it's not, and IIRC the genre is called 'macaronic'.  Mixing
Latin & the vernacular mid sentence was at one time very common.  Probably
the best known example, this side of the pond at least, is the Christmas
carol "In dulci jubilo", the first verse of which goes:

In dulci jubilo
  Now sing we all "Io";
Our delight & treasure
  Lies in presepio.
"Alpha es et O,
"Alpha es et O."

[Note for pedants: I _know_ the Classical spelling of 'presepio' is
different.  This is _medieval_ Latin]

The original in fact was in Latin & German; the English version merely
substitutes English for the German bits.

I've certainly come across examples in three languages: Latin, Middle
English & Old French.  And I'm pretty certain there are examples in four or
more languages.

Ray.