Some folks traded translation notes on Marion Marcotte's "L'Annoncement" a few years back. I recently went back and retranscribed and retranslated it, and caught a few extra words this time. It's really a funny skit!

L'Annoncement

Mes amis, j’ai un ‘noncement à faire icitte ce soir. Je veux vous laisser savoir que ma salle de danse, c’est une place respectable, ayoù le monde respectable vient pour s’amuser tous les samedis au soir.


[My friends, I have an announcement to make here tonight. I want to let you know that my dance room, it’s a respectable place, where the respectable people come to have a good time every Saturday evening.]



Samedi passé, comme tous les autres samedis, (on) les donnait un bal icitte. Mais je m’adonnais à pas être là pour tenir la paix. Et le lendemain, il n’a des complaintes qu’a été faites: que il n’avait de la méchante conduite et du jurement qu’avaient pris place.

[Last Saturday, like every other Saturday, we had a dance for them here. But I happened not to be there to keep the peace. And the next day, there were complaints that were made: that there was some wicked conduct and swearing that had taken place.]



Et quand ils m’ont raconté ça, ça m’a tellement mis en colère, (ju)squ’à j’aurais pu couper des clous de dix pennies avec mes dents.

[And when they told me that, it made me so angry, that I could have cut tenpenny nails (i.e., 3-inch nails) with my teeth.]



Mais samedi salle, je m’adonne à être là pour tenir la paix. Et je veux pas attendre dire pacane, ou je te casse ici dedans. Parce que moi, là, je suis un homme qu’a la patience aussi court que le bouquin de un cabri. Et le premier je vas voir qui se conduit pas bien, je vas l’empoigner par le chignon du cou, et le fond de culotte, et je vas bien le tamiser. Et quand j’aura fini avec, ils vont croire sûr qu’il avait pass(é) en travers d’un moulin à gru.

[But Saturday (dance) hall, I happen to be here to keep the peace. And I don’t want to hear anyone say a word, or I’ll break you here inside. inside here. Because me, I’m a man with patience as short as the hair on a billygoat’s chin. And the first one I’ll see who isn’t behaving well, I’ll grab him by the collar, and the seat of his pants, and I’ll give him a good thrashing. And when I’ll have finished with him, they’ll surely think that he had gone through a grist mill (i.e., a mill that grinds corn into grits).]



Je veux vous laisser savoir mes amis; que je suis capable de manier ces mal él(evés). Parce que moi, là, j’sus un homme qu’a des grands, grands cheveux qui me poussent sur la tête, et ça paraît un bon pour me s’arracher.

[And I want to let you know my friends; that I’m able to handle these bad-mannered people. Because I, now, I’m a man who has some long, long hair that grows on my head, and this seems a good (time) to tear it out.]



Parce que j’ai la réputation d’être le taureau du côteau, et mon frère Pierre, c’est lui qui est le coq de la grande pinière. Je veux vous-autres ayez un bon temps dans ma salle de danse, mes amis. Mais oubliez pas: je vas être après vous guetter mal él(evés) comme un carencro guette une charogne.

Because I have the reputation of being the bull of the hill, and my brother Pierre, he’s the one who is the rooster of the big piney woods. And I want y’all to have a good time in my dance hall my friends. But don’t forget, I’ll be watching you bad-mannered folks like a crow watches a carcass.



À present, les joueurs vont continuer avec la musique. J’ai eu Perrot Manuel pour jouer de la trompe,* et Pierre Roussel va l’accompagner avec une bass; ils vont ouverre le bal avec une valse que ils ont composé eux-autres-même.** Et le nom de cette valse là, c’est “Le Frisson de la Ville Platte.”

[Now, the players are going to continue with the music. I had Perrot Manuel to play the jaw harp, and Pierre Roussel is going to accompany with a base; they’re going to open the dance with a waltz that they have composed themselves. The name of that waltz, it’s “The Ville Platte Chill”.]



* note: the trompe is a “jaw’s harp” (See Dictionary of Louisiana French). If you saw the movie about Charlie Brown and the Spelling Bee, that’s little doodad that Snoopy played to help Charlie Brown learn spelling rules for a spelling bee (i before e, except after c …).


** note: the Dictionary of Louisiana French lists one alternative pronunciation for eux-autres as hᵓt (i.e., a contraction to the last syllable of the Louisiana French pronoun, “eux-autres”). This variant pronunciation sounds a bit like “heutte” with an unaspirated or barely-aspirated “h”. So when Marcotte says eux-autres-même here, it sounds like “heutte-même.”

One additional note: Marcotte says something that sounds like "Mal el" to refer to people who misbehave. Someone transcribed this as "malin" a few years back, but I have better digital processing software now and can clearly hear "el" (not "in") at the end of the word. I think it is Marcotte's short-hand way to say "mal élevés" (sometimes spelled with a hyphen, mal-élevés) --i.e., rude, impolite people.

Nice job! I agree with you about mal el...

Neal

I really appreciate these transcriptions John, Marion has such a wide vocab that I have trouble understanding him, which also makes him good to learn from.

Yes, it's good to have more ears listening to these important recordings and transcribing them. We were picking apart these recordings either on Dowell's site or here or both.

I went back to my notes and saw that a lot of the initial transcriptions for Marion Marcotte that I assembled from the internet a few years back were from you and Brian LaFleur -- thanks to you both for all that you did! I think that was on a page called L'Anse aux Pailles. One of the transcribed stories that I tried to help top off was Marcotte's "L'Eau Haute de 1927".

Right now, I'm working on a new pass at transcribing/translating Marcotte's "Le Pategau" (part 1). I started with a transcription that one of y'all posted a while back, but I am bogged down on one line. I'll post that in a new thread.

Hey John

Nice work. See if you can finish up my work on Compagne. I got stumped on several lines afterwards.

http://earlycajunmusic.blogspot.com/2014/11/la-vie-de-campagne-arcadians.html

WF

Here is what I am hearing for the next verse after your transcription in Marcotte's La Vie de Compagne (Campagne):

---
Il a dit aille à sa femme, mais, qu’elle aille (a)trap(er) des coton de maïs,
"Va m’attisoner le feu et faire un gross pain maïs."

Elle a coul(é) une grègue du café fève qu’elle a mis dans les braises. Il se roulé un Durham et se l’a accrochée derrière l’oreille.
---

He said to his wife to go, for her to go grab some corncobs,
"Go stir up the fire for me and make a big cornbread loaf."

She brewed up (literally, "dripped") a pot of coffee that she put in the hot coals. He rolled himself a Durham (= a Bull Durham cigarette) and hooks it behind his ear.


Note: the content of this verse is similar to Marion Marcotte's description of an exchange with his wife after he returned home with coffee and other supplies after being trapped for three weeks by a huge flood (towards the end of "L'Eau Haute de 1927").

How about chaRiva ri translation