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I'm moving this to The Song of Hiawatha, because:
there are probably more people who can quote Strong's parody in full than can quote eleven consecutive lines of Longfellow's original
Results 1 - 61 of about 142 for "by the shores of gitche gumee" "stood the wigwam of nokomis" (including the exact first and last phrases of the opening lines of the familiar passage)
Results 1 - 33 of about 46 for "fur side inside". (0.31 seconds) , most of which are partial quotations of the parody.
Dpbsmith 11:23, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Note that the Milkanwatha parody is actually book-length, over 100 pages, not just the eleven lines commonly remembered. The original Kalevala in Finnish has a more complex tetrameter pattern [1] but translations generally use a stricter trochaic tetrameter. "... the meter comes not from the Kalevala, which Longfellow couldn't read--he didn't know a word of Finnish; it comes from a German translation which converts the octosyllabics of the Finnish into trochaic tetrameter, a pounding meter in German. You know the one that Heine used unrhymed for so many poems." Ahazred8 13:48, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Longfellow as also influenced by the Kalevala's story-line; for example, Hiawatha's farewell, as he bids his people good-bye and sails away in his canoe after endorsing Christianity, is lifted directly from Vainamoinen's departure at the end of the Kalevala. 169.253.4.21 ( talk) 15:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)David Schlaefer
Well, my library couldn't get it through interlibrary loan and I was perishing of curiosity, so I ordered a used copy. It must have been very popular because they are plentiful and relatively cheap; mine, a "reading copy" in "fair condition" cost $15. It is the second edition, published in 1856, and I'll be putting something about it in the article here.
But the reason I'm putting this here is that the "fur-side inside" passage does not match the versions that are commonly anthologized. In Carolyn Wells' A Nonsense Anthology, it appears as follows, under the title "The Modern Hiawatha," attributed to "anonymous:"
The passage, as it appears on p. 27, of "The Song of Milkanwatha," Second Edition, said to be published in Cincinnati by "Tickell & Grinne," 1856:
And that's all there is to the mittens.
So: was this improved on by later writers? Or was it, perhaps, improved on by "Henderson" himself (when in the 3rd edition, published in 1883?) Dpbsmith (talk) 23:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Cut-and-pasted from User_talk:CJLippert so we can continue here...
Presumably, the point of the table you added is to show the accuracy or lack of accuracy in Longfellow's use of Ojibwe words? Or to show evolution of the language?
In any case, I'd be happier if you cited a source for the material in the columns headed "Ojibway" and "Ojibway meaning." Looking at your user page I'm guessing it's probably the Freelang Ojibwe Language Dictionary, which is fine, but it should be cited. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, Freelang can be cited, but so can any number of works by Fr. Baraga, or Nichols & Nyholm or Bloomfield or Cuoq, or Larry Smallwood at my office, or Joe Chosa who regularily features Ojibwe-language lessons in the local newspaper, or any other Ojibwe-speaker! Saying needing to cite the word is like saying cite the source of the word "word". It is silly. Now, if studies have been conducted where the words were compared and constrasted, then the study author would be cited. If someone have done an etmological analysis, then that analysis is cited. For a simple example such as the one being placed, no citation is needed. If you really, really want a citation, cite myself! If you look at the table, you will notice there are words that are not in the Freelang, or definitions that are not in Freelang, or word forms that are not in Freelang. I am pulling this from my own personal experiences (but it's not my sole personal experience, since even my neighbours would have had similar personal experiences) from using the Ojibwe language and living in the geography where Longfellow places this edda. If anything, when this table becomes complete, it will be a wikisource. CJLippert 14:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
To substantiate CJLippert's table with verifiable sources:
Just to play devil's advocate here, but why should the meaning of a contributer's words be subject to verification? Wouldn't that be like me questioning the words "based", "on", "the", "legends", etc., that are in the intro to the article? Does the author need to provide dictionary references to verify that those words mean what he(?) intends them to? Of course not...we all know what " is" is, right? If we all spoke the Ojibway language, would there be any question about the words? Applejuicefool 22:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
As I said, I'm playing devil's advocate. What percentage of Wikipedia users should be able to understand words in an article to make validation unnecessary? I mean, there are certain English articles on Wikipedia that are incomprehensible to me...a native English speaker. For instance, the article on vector space. I recognize the article as English, but this particular branch of English is not one that I have explored before. So I don't understand the language used, and yet I notice that there are no references on the article at all! What if somebody went through and made this whole thing up? How can we be sure it's not an elaborate prank? Because math genii say so? Why should the Ojibway language need validation, but not mathematics? Applejuicefool 06:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
i know that there is a mathematical poem, with hiawatha as the main character, that is mocking statistics, but didn't found a reference on this page. i've heard a translation and also saw few people quoting it in the web. i'll try to google it out and maybe provide more info. -- 194.50.85.1 11:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
sorry guys, but the section called "description" is absolutely insufficient!!! please give a substantial account of the contents before loosing yourself in endless lines of "analysis"... thank you!!! -- HilmarHansWerner ( talk) 17:20, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Please be careful with the YouTube links. We can't link to copyright violations. For example, Al Bowlly's performance of Ray Noble's "Hiawatha Lullaby" is still under copyright. We can't link to YouTube copies unless verifably uploaded by the copyright holder. Yworo ( talk) 18:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Same with the links to the Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons. Yworo ( talk) 18:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
The Verifiability policy cited by User:Yworo in a recent edit is all about textual information, not about providing a source of visual information. The 'solution' proposed for the Frances Anne Hopkins oil painting mentioned in the Artistic Use section admits that it is legally accessible - as Yworo has found out by implementing it. (The painting is also notable as cited in a scholarly source here). The solution proposed by Yworo was cumbersome and bureaucratic. Allowing a reader to access the illustration at the sole online source would have been easier. The guidelines on verifiability are there to make sure the article is sound but not, I argue, to hinder access to legitimate visual material. There are many personal sites on the web that carry such material with the aim of providing information otherwise difficult to come by. In this case, I consider interpreting the policy to cover visual sources that are out of copyright as questionable and I should like to see what others think. In my experience, WP administrators are prepared to review policy if they think this helps readers and the quality of articles. Mzilikazi1939 ( talk) 06:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Readers can get the idea of parodies of the poem without having five included on the page. That is overkill. Parkwells ( talk) 17:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Non-natives should not support this. I don't like ANY parodies on this article at all. The original narrative by Longfellow is based on the oral history of the Native Americans he interviewed. There was/is no written history in those times before the White Man. Yes it is a long story, with facts hard prove, but IMO the entire Parody section should be removed. It borders on racist. There is a sincere lack of oral history left in Native American Culture. If Natives object then that is one thing, but non-natives should not be editing these stories. -- 2600:6C48:7006:200:5C10:C716:750B:C3B2 ( talk) 01:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Has there been any comment or criticism of this work by Native Americans in the 20th century? If so, I think that should be included. Thanks. Rissa, copy editor ( talk) 18:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
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The following quote seems highly speculative to me and somewhat pejorative to the memory of Longfellow:
"It is likely that, 20 years later, Longfellow had forgotten most of what he had learned of that language, and he referred to a German translation of the Kalevala by Franz Anton Schiefner."
Why is this forgetfulness on the part of Longfellow "likely"?
The above line seems to suggest that Longfellow had a bad memory for languages, and that this bad memory is common knowledge (since the quote is not attributed to any one person but is stated as a general truth). The quote should be either removed or attributed to some specific person, along with an explanation of why that person drew this conclusion. Perhaps the conclusion is based on the supposed lack of Finnish influence in the Hiawatha poem, but surely Longfellow's supposed forgetfulness is not the only possible explanation for such a lack of influence. 204.111.28.75 ( talk) 01:35, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
I am rather surprised at the claim that Longfellow would have learned Finnish in Sweden. The other languages he is said to have studied during his year (1835) in Europe -- Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Icelandic -- are all Germanic and fairly easy to grasp if one speaks German, but Finnish is not an Indo-European language and the whole grammatical system is completely different, not to mention the vocabulary. He might have picked up some words and perhaps an inkling of how the grammar works, but I doubt he could have learned to understand or read it, let alone pronounce it, in that time.
One important feature of the Kalevala measure that is not found in translations is that it is not merely in trochaic tetrameter but in alliterative trochaic tetrameter, i.e., all or most words in the same line begin with the same phoneme ("letter"). For instance, the very beginning reads:
Mieleni minun tekevi
aivoni ajattelevi
lähteäni laulamahan
sanoja sanelemahan
sukuvirttä suoltamahan
lajivirttä laulamahan
Sanat suussani sulavat
puhe'et putoelevat
kielelleni kerkiävät
hampahilleni hajoovat
In most lines the first word is a noun and the last one a verb. Note the absence of articles and prepositions; Finnish does everything with endings. It would be interesting to see a translation of the Kalevala into a Dravidian language such as Tamil or some Inuit/Yupik language as these are closer (though not related) to Finnish in their grammatical workings than Indo-European languages are.--
Jarmo K. (
talk)
18:24, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
It is beyond idiotic that many passages or texts of Hiawatha parodies are included in the article, but not the text of the original poem, which is surely in the public domain by now. 2601:200:C000:1A0:F9EE:8C71:A15D:5FFE ( talk) 22:42, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I'm moving this to The Song of Hiawatha, because:
there are probably more people who can quote Strong's parody in full than can quote eleven consecutive lines of Longfellow's original
Results 1 - 61 of about 142 for "by the shores of gitche gumee" "stood the wigwam of nokomis" (including the exact first and last phrases of the opening lines of the familiar passage)
Results 1 - 33 of about 46 for "fur side inside". (0.31 seconds) , most of which are partial quotations of the parody.
Dpbsmith 11:23, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Note that the Milkanwatha parody is actually book-length, over 100 pages, not just the eleven lines commonly remembered. The original Kalevala in Finnish has a more complex tetrameter pattern [1] but translations generally use a stricter trochaic tetrameter. "... the meter comes not from the Kalevala, which Longfellow couldn't read--he didn't know a word of Finnish; it comes from a German translation which converts the octosyllabics of the Finnish into trochaic tetrameter, a pounding meter in German. You know the one that Heine used unrhymed for so many poems." Ahazred8 13:48, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Longfellow as also influenced by the Kalevala's story-line; for example, Hiawatha's farewell, as he bids his people good-bye and sails away in his canoe after endorsing Christianity, is lifted directly from Vainamoinen's departure at the end of the Kalevala. 169.253.4.21 ( talk) 15:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)David Schlaefer
Well, my library couldn't get it through interlibrary loan and I was perishing of curiosity, so I ordered a used copy. It must have been very popular because they are plentiful and relatively cheap; mine, a "reading copy" in "fair condition" cost $15. It is the second edition, published in 1856, and I'll be putting something about it in the article here.
But the reason I'm putting this here is that the "fur-side inside" passage does not match the versions that are commonly anthologized. In Carolyn Wells' A Nonsense Anthology, it appears as follows, under the title "The Modern Hiawatha," attributed to "anonymous:"
The passage, as it appears on p. 27, of "The Song of Milkanwatha," Second Edition, said to be published in Cincinnati by "Tickell & Grinne," 1856:
And that's all there is to the mittens.
So: was this improved on by later writers? Or was it, perhaps, improved on by "Henderson" himself (when in the 3rd edition, published in 1883?) Dpbsmith (talk) 23:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Cut-and-pasted from User_talk:CJLippert so we can continue here...
Presumably, the point of the table you added is to show the accuracy or lack of accuracy in Longfellow's use of Ojibwe words? Or to show evolution of the language?
In any case, I'd be happier if you cited a source for the material in the columns headed "Ojibway" and "Ojibway meaning." Looking at your user page I'm guessing it's probably the Freelang Ojibwe Language Dictionary, which is fine, but it should be cited. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, Freelang can be cited, but so can any number of works by Fr. Baraga, or Nichols & Nyholm or Bloomfield or Cuoq, or Larry Smallwood at my office, or Joe Chosa who regularily features Ojibwe-language lessons in the local newspaper, or any other Ojibwe-speaker! Saying needing to cite the word is like saying cite the source of the word "word". It is silly. Now, if studies have been conducted where the words were compared and constrasted, then the study author would be cited. If someone have done an etmological analysis, then that analysis is cited. For a simple example such as the one being placed, no citation is needed. If you really, really want a citation, cite myself! If you look at the table, you will notice there are words that are not in the Freelang, or definitions that are not in Freelang, or word forms that are not in Freelang. I am pulling this from my own personal experiences (but it's not my sole personal experience, since even my neighbours would have had similar personal experiences) from using the Ojibwe language and living in the geography where Longfellow places this edda. If anything, when this table becomes complete, it will be a wikisource. CJLippert 14:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
To substantiate CJLippert's table with verifiable sources:
Just to play devil's advocate here, but why should the meaning of a contributer's words be subject to verification? Wouldn't that be like me questioning the words "based", "on", "the", "legends", etc., that are in the intro to the article? Does the author need to provide dictionary references to verify that those words mean what he(?) intends them to? Of course not...we all know what " is" is, right? If we all spoke the Ojibway language, would there be any question about the words? Applejuicefool 22:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
As I said, I'm playing devil's advocate. What percentage of Wikipedia users should be able to understand words in an article to make validation unnecessary? I mean, there are certain English articles on Wikipedia that are incomprehensible to me...a native English speaker. For instance, the article on vector space. I recognize the article as English, but this particular branch of English is not one that I have explored before. So I don't understand the language used, and yet I notice that there are no references on the article at all! What if somebody went through and made this whole thing up? How can we be sure it's not an elaborate prank? Because math genii say so? Why should the Ojibway language need validation, but not mathematics? Applejuicefool 06:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
i know that there is a mathematical poem, with hiawatha as the main character, that is mocking statistics, but didn't found a reference on this page. i've heard a translation and also saw few people quoting it in the web. i'll try to google it out and maybe provide more info. -- 194.50.85.1 11:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
sorry guys, but the section called "description" is absolutely insufficient!!! please give a substantial account of the contents before loosing yourself in endless lines of "analysis"... thank you!!! -- HilmarHansWerner ( talk) 17:20, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Please be careful with the YouTube links. We can't link to copyright violations. For example, Al Bowlly's performance of Ray Noble's "Hiawatha Lullaby" is still under copyright. We can't link to YouTube copies unless verifably uploaded by the copyright holder. Yworo ( talk) 18:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Same with the links to the Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons. Yworo ( talk) 18:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
The Verifiability policy cited by User:Yworo in a recent edit is all about textual information, not about providing a source of visual information. The 'solution' proposed for the Frances Anne Hopkins oil painting mentioned in the Artistic Use section admits that it is legally accessible - as Yworo has found out by implementing it. (The painting is also notable as cited in a scholarly source here). The solution proposed by Yworo was cumbersome and bureaucratic. Allowing a reader to access the illustration at the sole online source would have been easier. The guidelines on verifiability are there to make sure the article is sound but not, I argue, to hinder access to legitimate visual material. There are many personal sites on the web that carry such material with the aim of providing information otherwise difficult to come by. In this case, I consider interpreting the policy to cover visual sources that are out of copyright as questionable and I should like to see what others think. In my experience, WP administrators are prepared to review policy if they think this helps readers and the quality of articles. Mzilikazi1939 ( talk) 06:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Readers can get the idea of parodies of the poem without having five included on the page. That is overkill. Parkwells ( talk) 17:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Non-natives should not support this. I don't like ANY parodies on this article at all. The original narrative by Longfellow is based on the oral history of the Native Americans he interviewed. There was/is no written history in those times before the White Man. Yes it is a long story, with facts hard prove, but IMO the entire Parody section should be removed. It borders on racist. There is a sincere lack of oral history left in Native American Culture. If Natives object then that is one thing, but non-natives should not be editing these stories. -- 2600:6C48:7006:200:5C10:C716:750B:C3B2 ( talk) 01:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Has there been any comment or criticism of this work by Native Americans in the 20th century? If so, I think that should be included. Thanks. Rissa, copy editor ( talk) 18:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
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The following quote seems highly speculative to me and somewhat pejorative to the memory of Longfellow:
"It is likely that, 20 years later, Longfellow had forgotten most of what he had learned of that language, and he referred to a German translation of the Kalevala by Franz Anton Schiefner."
Why is this forgetfulness on the part of Longfellow "likely"?
The above line seems to suggest that Longfellow had a bad memory for languages, and that this bad memory is common knowledge (since the quote is not attributed to any one person but is stated as a general truth). The quote should be either removed or attributed to some specific person, along with an explanation of why that person drew this conclusion. Perhaps the conclusion is based on the supposed lack of Finnish influence in the Hiawatha poem, but surely Longfellow's supposed forgetfulness is not the only possible explanation for such a lack of influence. 204.111.28.75 ( talk) 01:35, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
I am rather surprised at the claim that Longfellow would have learned Finnish in Sweden. The other languages he is said to have studied during his year (1835) in Europe -- Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Icelandic -- are all Germanic and fairly easy to grasp if one speaks German, but Finnish is not an Indo-European language and the whole grammatical system is completely different, not to mention the vocabulary. He might have picked up some words and perhaps an inkling of how the grammar works, but I doubt he could have learned to understand or read it, let alone pronounce it, in that time.
One important feature of the Kalevala measure that is not found in translations is that it is not merely in trochaic tetrameter but in alliterative trochaic tetrameter, i.e., all or most words in the same line begin with the same phoneme ("letter"). For instance, the very beginning reads:
Mieleni minun tekevi
aivoni ajattelevi
lähteäni laulamahan
sanoja sanelemahan
sukuvirttä suoltamahan
lajivirttä laulamahan
Sanat suussani sulavat
puhe'et putoelevat
kielelleni kerkiävät
hampahilleni hajoovat
In most lines the first word is a noun and the last one a verb. Note the absence of articles and prepositions; Finnish does everything with endings. It would be interesting to see a translation of the Kalevala into a Dravidian language such as Tamil or some Inuit/Yupik language as these are closer (though not related) to Finnish in their grammatical workings than Indo-European languages are.--
Jarmo K. (
talk)
18:24, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
It is beyond idiotic that many passages or texts of Hiawatha parodies are included in the article, but not the text of the original poem, which is surely in the public domain by now. 2601:200:C000:1A0:F9EE:8C71:A15D:5FFE ( talk) 22:42, 11 October 2021 (UTC)