TRADITIONAL GREEK BIRTHDAY SONG LYRICS HOW TO

Here is a YouTube video with a modern performance of the song in the original Latin and French by New London Consort: Here is the first stanza of the song in the original Latin and the French refrain: The stanzas of the song are in Latin, but the refrain is in French. The original version of “Orientis Partibus” is in two different languages. The melody of the song has also been reused as the melody for the more familiar modern Christmas carol “The Friendly Beasts,” the words to which were written in around 1920 by Robert Davis. In recent years, the song has been translated into English and used as a Christmas carol. “Orientis Partibus” was originally written for performance as part of the so-called “Feast of the Ass,” which took place every year on January 14th in celebration of the flight of Joseph, Mary, and their infant son Jesus into Egypt. It is attested in Edgerton Manuscript 2615, which was produced in Beauvais, France at some point in around the second quarter of the thirteenth century, most likely between c. “Orientis Partibus,” also known as “The Song of the Ass,” is a song from France that is believed to date to around the late twelfth century AD or thereabouts. You may notice a few similarities between this song and some of the ancient Greek songs I included in this article I wrote back in October. Here is a YouTube video with a modern performance of the carol in Greek: Here are the lyrics in the original Byzantine Greek: It is thought to be the oldest known Greek Christmas carol to which both the lyrics and melody have survived. The lyrics of the song have been dated based on linguistic evidence to around the eleventh century AD. The “Byzantine Carol,” or “Ἄναρχος Θεὸς καταβέβηκεν,” is a Greek Christmas carol in Byzantine Greek associated with the city of Kotyora on the Black Sea (modern-day Ordu, Turkey).

All of these songs were composed before the nineteenth century and nearly all of them were originally composed in languages other than English. I have gathered songs from places as diverse as the Byzantine Empire, late medieval Spain, Renaissance Finland and Sweden, and Early Modern England. Here I have collected a few of my favorite extremely old Christmas songs, some of which date all the way back to the Middle Ages. Few of the songs we know today were composed before the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, most of the songs we know today are actually relatively young compared to some of the other songs that have been sung historically. After all, as I discuss in this article I wrote about the history of Santa Claus, even the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”-arguably one of the least traditional Christmas songs-is over seventy years old. Nowadays, we tend to think of many of our carols as being extremely old and traditional.

TRADITIONAL GREEK BIRTHDAY SONG LYRICS HOW TO

It’s a great idea to make the effort to learn how to say this in someone’s native language or a language that means something to them.One of my favorite Christmas traditions is singing carols with my family. Thanks for reading this post on how to say ‘happy birthday’ in Greek. May you spread the light of knowledge everywhereĪnd may everyone say, here is a wise one” The video above shows the female form of the song. Use megali and mia if the birthday person is female. Use megalos and enas if the birthday person is male. You have to alter the song in 2 places (see words pairs in bold). There are 2 variations of the song – one for males and one for females. If you’re speaking to someone special then you’ll want to know how to say I love you in Greek.Ĭheck out the below video to hear the pronunciation of some of these phrases: This phrase is ‘may you reach 1000 years’. However over the years, as living until 100 became more reachable, a new phrase also developed. The phrase ‘may you reach 100 years old’ is a super common wish heard on birthdays. Alternatively, you can also use some of these phrases: EnglishĪs you can see, the Greeks have some fun phrases that are commonly used on birthdays.

Traditional greek birthday song lyrics