Snowball wanted me to translate the Llama Song into three Romance languages. (I'm not quite sure why.) Unfortunately, I only have time to do it in Portuguese. Here it is:
A Canção Lhama
Aqui está um lhama,
Ali está um lhama,
E mais um lhaminha,
Lhama felpudo, lhama engraçado,
Lhama lhama pato.Lhama lhama torta de queijo,
Tablete tijolo batata lhama,
Lhama lhama cogumelo lhama,
Lhama lhama pato.Uma vez fui casinha de árvore,
Eu morava num bolo,
Mas jamais vi a maneira pela qual a laranja assassinou o ancinho.
Eu só tinha três anos de morte,
Mas contou uma história,
E agora, escute, criançinha, o parapeito de segurança.Já viu um lhama
Beijar um lhama na lhama
Lhama de lhama
Tem sabor de lhama,
Lhama lhama pato.Meio lhama,
O lhama dobrado,
Lhama agricultor,
Lhama num carro,
Alarme um lhama
Lhama pato.É assim que se conta hoje em dia?
É tudo tão velho assim?
É feito de água de limão?
Maçaneta de porta tornozelo frio
Agora a minha cançao está ficando escassa,
Já perdi a sorte.
Está na hora de eu me aposentar e virar pato.
Observations:
- My translation does not rhyme.
- It's very hard to translate words that have no clear contextual meaning. In "Doorknob ankle cold", does "cold" mean headcold or frigidness, or is it an adjective? In my translation, it looks like the song is refering to a cold ankle.
- There is no cheesecake in the Portuguese-speaking world, so I translated it as "cheese pie".
- "Lemon also gave me a headache. In Brazil, the word "limão" is used generally to refer to limes and a few related species that we don't have in the US. (One variety is even orange!) But there are no yellow lemons available in Brazil, except perhaps in import stores. A bit of online research revealed that what we call a lemon is actually a hybrid. I think "limão" works as a general lemon/lime term, so I used it in the translation. Otherwise I would have had to go with a Latin designation or some obscure term, like "limão-galego" that most Brazilians would not know.
- "Lhama" can also be "lama", but that would be too easy to pronounce (and also means "mud" when feminine).