The Cow in Maillote, Redux
We Asked for Help in a Recent Post. We Got It! (Day 85)
A couple days ago, we posted about a new piano jingle Little Bean learned based on a request from a reader. The song is old, and French, and even though my daughter did great learning the song, we were struggling to make sense of the lyrics.
If you missed the story, here is a link to catch you up: The Cow in Maillote, A Request.
So, our good friend Alan reached out a friend of his, a French teacher and native French speaker in Philadelphia, Eric Simonis, to help us with the translation and his response was amazing! He really was able to shed some light on the history and etymology of the song.
Eric gave us permission to print his response and research here, so enjoy!
From French teacher Eric Simonis
My friend Alan asked me to look into the song La vache à maillotte. The song is unknown to me, but I may have an explanation regarding the word “maillotte”.
Maillotte is an old French word which means "les langes", that is to say "diapers"... or "flannel blanket" / "swaddling clothes", which were used in the old days to wrap babies.
So, I do not believe that "maillotte" should be translated into "jersey" ("jersey" in French is "un maillot" as in "le maillot jaune / the yellow jersey). Looking at the lyrics, I believe that "La vache à maillotte" is a baby cow/calf, possibly wrapped in some swaddling clothes. The poor animal must have been very sick... That would explain that she died with her head in a "pot", trying to drink some milk perhaps (a bucket of milk probably). The fact that the song says "her service was not too long" seems to indicate that the cow died very young... hence my sickly baby cow wrapped in "maillotte"!
I could have mentioned as well that the verb "emmailloter" meant "envelopper un bébé dans des langes" / "to wrap a baby in swaddling clothes - in a flannel blanket". In modern French, we still use the reflexive verb "s'emmailloter", that is "to wrap oneself up carefully", when it is cold for example...
-> Durant les longues nuits d'hiver, elle s'emmaillotait les jambes dans une couverture = during the long winter nights, she wrapped her legs in a blanket.
Regarding the spelling, it seems that sometimes the old word "maillote / maillotte" was spelled with one "t" or with a double "tt"... I think we need to bring a professional etymologist into our conversation!!!
The history and meaning of words is so very interesting, no matter the language! Thank you so much to Eric Simonis for taking the time to research and translate the history of the song for us. Doesn’t that make Little Bean playing it even more interesting! And thanks to Alan for finding us Eric.
Eric may not know it yet, but he’s now become Day By Day’s official French translator and historian. If you’d like to learn more about Eric, we encourage you to visit his website here: Oui French Philla