Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah

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The nyah-nyah tune features a descending minor third. Play Nyah nyah nyah music notation.png
The nyah-nyah tune features a descending minor third. Play

"Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah" is the lexigraphic representation of a common children's chant. It is a rendering of one common vocalization for a six-note musical figure [note 1] that is usually associated with children and found in many European-derived cultures, and which is often used in taunting. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The figure comes from a pentatonic scale of A minor, if starting on the pitch of G: G-E-A-G-E. The pentatonic scale is nearly universal in human cultures. It is also within the easiest range for children's voices. The Korean figure uses the same scale with a different pattern of notes.

Contents

Variations

The tune has many variations on how "nyah-nyah" is vocalized (e.g., "Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh"), [7] some examples of which include:

The tune is also heard in Canada, Australia, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, United Kingdom, and Iceland.[ citation needed ] Children in Korea use a different figure for teasing, la-so-la-so mi-re-mi-re with the vocalization 얼레리 꼴레리 (eol-re-ri kkol-re-ri)[ citation needed ] while a Japanese variant is so-so-mi-mi so-mi-mi[ citation needed ] and in Mexico a so-la-so-mi, so-la-so-mi figure is found.[ citation needed ]

The initial taunt is sometimes followed by further verses using the same tune, for instance in America "Nanny nanny nanny goat, cannot catch a billy goat" or following "Nanny nanny boo boo" with "Stick your head in doo-doo". French children might follow "Na na na na nère" with "Pouette pouette camembert". In Croatia, children sing "Ulovi me, ulovi me, kupit ću ti novine. Novine su skupe, poljubi me u dupe" (which means: "Catch me, catch me, [if you do that] I'll buy you a newspaper. Newspapers are pricey, kiss my tushie").[ citation needed ]

While the word "nyah" is now defined as being in and of itself an expression of contemptuous superiority over another, this is by derivation from the "nyah-nyah..." chant rather than vice versa [12] so the "nyah-nyah..." vocalization version of the chant is, at least in origin, an example of communication entirely by paralanguage. [7] Context-meaningful words are sometimes applied ad hoc , however, such as "Johnny is a sis-sy", "I got the blue one", or "I can see your underwear!". [4] Shirley Jackson referred to it as the "da da, da-da da" or "I know a secret" chant in Life Among the Savages. [13]

Other uses

Non-taunting uses are also seen, also associated with children. Several playground songs use the "Nyah nyah..." musical figure, including A Tisket, A Tasket; It's Raining, It's Pouring;[ citation needed ] and some variants of Ring a Ring o' Roses, [6] Bye, baby Bunting [2] [5] [6] and Olly olly oxen free. [1] The tune has been used as an advertising jingle by the confectionery company Haribo. [14]

The figure is used in the Benjamin Britten opera The Rape of Lucretia (1946) for a scene where the Roman and Etruscan generals mock each other. [2]

Descendents centered the song "I Don't Want To Grow Up" around the figure in their 1985 album of the same name.[ citation needed ]

The tune (in both the "nah" and "nyah" forms) features as the chorus of the theme song 'It's Not Fair' from the 'Horrid Henry' animated TV series on CITV. [15]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Sometimes five-note, with the first two notes combined as one long note ("Nyaaahh nyah nyah nyah nyah") or other variations, such as the third note shortened or the fifth note stressed in volume, intonation, or duration, and so forth.

References

  1. 1 2 Leonard Bernstein (1983). "Musical Phonology", lecture 1 of The Unanswered Question lecture series (Lecture). Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Event occurs at 27:00. Retrieved 2016-08-29. Research seems to indicate that this exact constellation of two notes [descending minor third], and its three-note variant, is the same all over the world, wherever children tease each other, on every continent and in every culture. In short, we may have here a clear case of a musical-linguistic universal., cited at Metzger, Patrick (2016-08-29). "The Millennial Whoop: The Simple Melodic Sequence That's Showing Up All Over Contemporary Pop". Browbeat (Slate's Culture Blog). Slate. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  2. 1 2 3 Albright, Daniel (1999). Untwisting the Serpent: Modernism in Music, Literature, and Other Arts. University Of Chicago Press. p. 94. ISBN   978-0226012544 . Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  3. ↑ Tsur, Reuven (1992). What Makes Sound Patterns Expressive?: The Poetic Mode of Speech Perception. Sound & Meaning: The Roman Jakobson Series in Linguistics and Poetics. Duke University Press. p. 48. ISBN   0822311704 . Retrieved 2016-08-30.
  4. 1 2 "A Feeling for Harmony: The 3-Semester Music Theory Course for Earlham College – Chapter 1E - Pentatonic Scale". Earlham College. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  5. 1 2 Wells, John (2011-07-18). "Nuh-nuh (2)". John Wells's Phonetic Blog. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  6. 1 2 3 Wells, John (2011-07-25). "Nuh-nuh (3)". John Wells's Phonetic Blog. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  7. 1 2 Wells, John (2011-07-15). "Nuh-nuh". John Wells's Phonetic Blog. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  8. ↑ Helgeland, Anne; Lund, Ingrid (2016). "Children's Voices on Bullying in Kindergarten" (PDF). Early Childhood Education Journal. 45 (1): 133–141. doi:10.1007/s10643-016-0784-z. hdl: 11250/2429746 . S2CID   73584991.
  9. ↑ Karp, Mike (2005-08-02). "Is storage archiving child's play?". NetworkWorld.
  10. ↑ Fagyal, Zsuzsanna (March 1999). "Combien de clichés mélodiques? révision de l'inventaire des contours intonatifs stylisés en français". Faits de Langues (in French). 7 (13): 17–25. doi:10.3406/flang.1999.1234 . Retrieved 2017-06-10.
  11. ↑ Lindström, Fredrik (November 2007). "Gammalt adelsprat" (in Swedish). Språktidningen. Retrieved 2018-05-06. Hon skriver bolet, 'bordet', fälas, 'färdas' och gålen, 'gården'. Den sistnämnda formen är odödliggjord i den här ramsan: "Skvallerbytta Bing-bong/går i alla gålar/slickar alla skålar"; det är alltså inget nödrim!
  12. ↑ "Definition of nyah in English". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on 2015-12-04. Retrieved 2016-08-30.
  13. ↑ Jackson, Shirley (1963). Life Among the Savages. Farrar Straus Giroux.
  14. ↑ "HARIBO GOLDBÄREN Klassiker: Bärenschau". YouTube . Retrieved 2021-11-23.
  15. ↑ "Horrid Henry Theme Lyrics". Lyrics On Demand. Retrieved 2024-03-22.

Bibliography

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