Re: OT: Looking for Dutch children's song

Sorry for the bad formatting in my previous email.  Let's try this again so maybe it reads better!
 
 
 
Greetings to all! I'm looking for assistance from any Dutch or Frisian speakers on the
list. Because it's off-topic to the list, I'd like to invite anyone to respond
to my personal email instead of the entire list ...
I'm not a fluent Dutch speaker (in fact, I know very little Dutch at all beyond
the basics). But my grandmother is the daughter of a Dutch immigrant, and she
was raised as an "American Dutch girl" in Iowa. She just celebrated her 94th
birthday, and we've seen a decline in her mental faculties over the last decade
or so. But one thing she still remembers -- are the old children's songs that
she heard as a girl from her father. She remembered one song well enough that
she could even sing it to my two-month-old daughter when we came to visit
recently -- both in Dutch and English!
Unfortunately, because of her mental condition, she wasn't able to write the song down. But
she dictated the original words (along with what I think is a non-literal
English translation) to my mother, who did her best to write down the Dutch
sounds phonetically. We have no idea if her phonetic guesses are even close to
the original Dutch words. Another complication: the language might not actually
be Dutch, but Frisian, since her father came to Iowa from Ternaard, in
Friesland. But whichever language it is, I'd like to find the original words to
the song, as well as a more literal English translation.
Here goes our best attempt at writing down the song. (I'm mostly going with the
phonetic spelling from my mother's transcription, rather than guessing what the
true words were. I have a basic clue about Dutch spelling, but I don't know a
wit about Frisian, so I'd rather not even try.)
 
Original Dutch(?):
Suza nona Popkin -- (popkje?)Kelta lyin gropka -- (gropkje?)Mam in huis Sofear van
hoosSee caneet verrupke(Zij kan niet?)
 
English gloss:
Just a little calf,thereLying in the straw thereMother and father so far from the
houseThey can't hear him crying
Thanks in advance for any direction anyone can provide! Best regards, :Chris
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