February 25, 2011

The Forgotten Nursery Rhymes

These are two of the old nursery rhymes sang by my late Tok (Penang grandmother) long time ago…

Cak cekuq
Udang gamit
Mintak cekuq
Bagi kunyit

Nyai nyai bo
Gendang jawa
Masak buboq
Panggil saya

These rhymes are accompanied by hand gestures. For the first one, is opening and closing your fist while reciting the rhyme. The second one is waving your open palm back and forth, gracefully, to the second rhyme.

One very familiar nursery rhyme is sang while clapping your hands together:

Pok amai amai
Belalang kupu-kupu
Pok <insert child’s name here> pandai
Nanti upah susu

From my Nenek in Malacca, two rhymes sang when a child has knock himself/herself and cried;

Tungku tangkal panjat pintu
Orang nakal memang begitu

Tungku tangkal panjat peran
Orang nakal memang tak jeran

The idea is to sing these rhymes to make the pain go away, while being a bit sarcastic at the same time. Ha ha ha…

There is one more that I am not familiar with. Mak asks me to check with my Mak Long for the correct words. Once I got it, I will post it here.

5 comments:

The Momster said...

From what I remember for the first one it was

mintak kapuq bagi kunyit :D

but there could be several versions rite?

Hajar said...

Momster, haha... that could be right also. and yes, i guess there are different versions. ;-)

D.N.A.S said...

When I ran out of nursery rhymes, I sang Siti Nurhaliza's song to Zarif. These days, he sings himself to sleep.

Hajar said...

Kak Yang, such a big boy already! hehe... terpaksa menghiburkan hati sendiri...

Unknown said...

aku masih nyanyi pok amai2 kat anak buah aku yg kecik tu...dia slalu mintak sbb dia bleh contribute by tepuk tangan...