Author: John Chivers via YouTube
Go to Source
Text:
"Ich armes welsches Teufli bin müde vom Marschieren,
Ich hab verlor’n mein Pfeifli aus meinem Mantelsack.
Schad’t nichts, ich hab’s gefunden, was du verloren hast."
My own shot at an English translation…
"I’m a poor, foreign imp, tired from marching.
I have lost my little pipe from my saddlebag.
Don’t worry, I have found that which you lost."
We sang this as a traditional round in the German choir at Coventry University, possibly in 1990 or 1991, led enthusiastically by our late, great German lecturer, Ann Benwell, and it popped back into my head this afternoon for no obvious reason, so I found the words and music again and threw together a quick multi-track vocal project in Cubase. It’s not perfect singing by any means, with a single take of each line. The low A2 is also just a tone below my comfortable singing range. I could have transposed it, but that’s cheating.
Traditional round. Supposedly 18th century and supposedly Swiss. The Swiss origin makes perfect sense to me for a couple of reasons. The -li suffix (in Pfeifli) is the Swiss German equivalent of the standard German -chen diminuative suffix, so Pfeifli would be a small pipe (I’m guessing a musical pipe rather than a smoking pipe, but could be wrong).
Secondly, from what I can remember, adjective welsch (also wälsch) is a general old Swiss term for non-German speaking Swiss or foreigners in general, but mostly relates to the smaller French, Italian, or Romansh-speaking Swiss minorities. I believe it is the common germanic root of the English word Welsh, which also had an old sense of ‘foreign’. In the context of Britain, the Welsh would similarly be seen as minority language speakers, as with the French, Italian, and Romansh speakers in Switzerland.
I don’t know if there’s possibly a connection with the canton Valais (‘Wallis’ in German). Walliser is the German the demonym for the canton. In my late teens, there was a famous female Swiss skier called Maria Walliser. But moving swiftly along, there’s possibly a lingustic link.
Swiss German shifts vowels around a bit compared to standard German, so although I’ve sung it in standard German (we sang it in choir that way and the text is written that way), I’d be interested to hear from any Swiss viewers whether it’s sung in Schwyzerdütsch, e.g. mein Pfeifli pronounced as "meen Pfeefli" (to use a bad literal English representation of phonetic pronunciation).
I’d be greatful for any clarifications from anyone in the know.
The silly bit at the end was irresitible. The melody does remind me of "Wir pflügen und wir streuen…" or "We plough the fields and scatter" as fellow English speakers may know it.
Cover photo includes The Glärnisch Massif in Switzerland, c. 1790, sourced from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swiss_18th_Century,_The_Gl%C3%A4rnisch_Massif_in_Switzerland,_c._1790,_NGA_207026.jpg